Okay, I am finally trying to re-work my budget and wanted to get some feedback. First I will start off by saying this this is just my half of the bills. Husband and I have separate checking accounts and each pay certain things. He has more of the fixed expenses - mortgage, car payments, most utilities, his student loans... I carry the credit card bills, daycare, my own student loans, and a bunch of other things. I also do the bulk of the grocery shopping. So here is my monthly budget and then I'll explain a few things.
Expenses Amount
Chase 144
Discover 226
Citicard 92
Capital One 390
Bank of America 454
Sallie Mae 361
Electricity 152
Camper 122
Newspaper 10
Car insurance 123
Cell phone 127
Busch Gardens 16
EZ Pass 35
Son's school lunch) 40
ADT (home security) 40
AHS (home warranty) 46
Daycare 1141
Total 3519
Income 3562
Gas FSA Reimbursement
Groceries FSA Reimbursement
I got a 2nd job that brings in at least $600 a month, and I am trying to keep that out of my budget and put it all towards my credit cards. I am paying Chase off first, current balance of $7600 at 12.49% and if I stay on track it will be paid off before Christmas, possibly sooner if I can pick up some extra evenings at work.
Okay, so the first 5 bills listed are the minimum payments on my credit cards. My student loan, electric bill, car insurance, and pop-up camper payment are constant amounts. Selling the camper isn't really an option, it's only a year and a half old, so we haven't paid enought off yet to be able to get rid of it. The newspaper subscription saves me a ton of money by couponing. I already have my cell phone package down to the lowest plan I can. My contract is up in September and I have no plans on upgrading to a new phone as long as mine continues to work.
My monthly "income" doesn't include my flexible spending account reimbursement of $416 that I get every month. I have recently opened a Capital One 360 checking account and my plan is to have that money deposited into that account, and use that debit card for gas and groceries only. My biggest problem there is that I don't think it's possible for me to only spend $416 a month on gas and groceries for a family of 4. My gas alone is usually about $230 a month. $186 a month for food and paper products for a family of 4 seems nearly impossible to me. Right now I am easily spending over $100 a week.
One place I think I could save a little bit of money is making my son's lunch instead of letting him buy it, but it wouldn't be much. His lunch is $1.85 a day and I'm not sure I'd save that much making it, as obviously it would increase my grocery bill. Also, we are not renewing our Busch Gardens pass when it is up in September, so that is some savings too. I will probably be getting about a 1.5% raise in July (that's what it's been the last few years), so that will be another $53 a month.
Currently, my Busch Gardens, cell phone, ADT, AHS, EZ Pass, and school lunch all get automatically paid on my Discover card ($304), and then I pay it off each month, just enough to make room for the next month's expenses. Obviously it costs me less money per month doing it like this, but I never make any progress on the Discover card like I would if I made the minimum payment and then didn't use it (this card is #2 on my payoff list).
I did this budget broken out like this so I could see if I could pay everything without ever using the credit card again. I'm not sure I can at this point... obviously this "budget" doesn't include anything like clothes for my kids (which luckily I have 2 boys so the younger one almost never needs anything), clothes for me (I almost never buy myself anything, and ask for Kohls' gift cards to birthday/Christmas to use for that purpose), any of the little school things that come up (field trips, school pictures, etc), or pretty much anything else. I get my hair trimmed about once every 3 months ($25), don't get my nails done or any of that kind of thing, and have been super cheap on gifts and do mostly homemade things.
Okay, now my post is super long, bring on the sugestions!!
Expenses Amount
Chase 144
Discover 226
Citicard 92
Capital One 390
Bank of America 454
Sallie Mae 361
Electricity 152
Camper 122
Newspaper 10
Car insurance 123
Cell phone 127
Busch Gardens 16
EZ Pass 35
Son's school lunch) 40
ADT (home security) 40
AHS (home warranty) 46
Daycare 1141
Total 3519
Income 3562
Gas FSA Reimbursement
Groceries FSA Reimbursement
I got a 2nd job that brings in at least $600 a month, and I am trying to keep that out of my budget and put it all towards my credit cards. I am paying Chase off first, current balance of $7600 at 12.49% and if I stay on track it will be paid off before Christmas, possibly sooner if I can pick up some extra evenings at work.
Okay, so the first 5 bills listed are the minimum payments on my credit cards. My student loan, electric bill, car insurance, and pop-up camper payment are constant amounts. Selling the camper isn't really an option, it's only a year and a half old, so we haven't paid enought off yet to be able to get rid of it. The newspaper subscription saves me a ton of money by couponing. I already have my cell phone package down to the lowest plan I can. My contract is up in September and I have no plans on upgrading to a new phone as long as mine continues to work.
My monthly "income" doesn't include my flexible spending account reimbursement of $416 that I get every month. I have recently opened a Capital One 360 checking account and my plan is to have that money deposited into that account, and use that debit card for gas and groceries only. My biggest problem there is that I don't think it's possible for me to only spend $416 a month on gas and groceries for a family of 4. My gas alone is usually about $230 a month. $186 a month for food and paper products for a family of 4 seems nearly impossible to me. Right now I am easily spending over $100 a week.
One place I think I could save a little bit of money is making my son's lunch instead of letting him buy it, but it wouldn't be much. His lunch is $1.85 a day and I'm not sure I'd save that much making it, as obviously it would increase my grocery bill. Also, we are not renewing our Busch Gardens pass when it is up in September, so that is some savings too. I will probably be getting about a 1.5% raise in July (that's what it's been the last few years), so that will be another $53 a month.
Currently, my Busch Gardens, cell phone, ADT, AHS, EZ Pass, and school lunch all get automatically paid on my Discover card ($304), and then I pay it off each month, just enough to make room for the next month's expenses. Obviously it costs me less money per month doing it like this, but I never make any progress on the Discover card like I would if I made the minimum payment and then didn't use it (this card is #2 on my payoff list).
I did this budget broken out like this so I could see if I could pay everything without ever using the credit card again. I'm not sure I can at this point... obviously this "budget" doesn't include anything like clothes for my kids (which luckily I have 2 boys so the younger one almost never needs anything), clothes for me (I almost never buy myself anything, and ask for Kohls' gift cards to birthday/Christmas to use for that purpose), any of the little school things that come up (field trips, school pictures, etc), or pretty much anything else. I get my hair trimmed about once every 3 months ($25), don't get my nails done or any of that kind of thing, and have been super cheap on gifts and do mostly homemade things.
Okay, now my post is super long, bring on the sugestions!!
Same reason we always have relatively new cars - as soon as a car goes out of warranty he freaks out, like it is all of a sudden going to burst into a fireball with me and the kids inside. Some things just aren't worth the fight. 
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