Please help me on my budget.

[mommyonamission]

This was my original post from yesterday. I had such great advice on that thread from everyone that I didnt want to post my budget on that thread and take the chance of the great responders on there missing it. I will post my budget below.

Post from Yesterday:
Hello everyone, I am new here and I look forward to hearing everyones thoughts.

Dh and I are starting a budget so we can pay off some debt. I know what we have to do and I have actually made a really good broken out budget in excel. Dh gets paid weekly and I get paid bi weekly. I have figured that his paycheck will cover the weekly expenses like daycare, gas, groceries, etc but my question is this.

How do you first start off. I have it (on paper) to where I can say okay, dh's first paycheck of the month will pay bill 1,2,and 3. My first paycheck pays bills 7,8,9 and so on and so on according to their due dates. but as of right now we are never "caught up" we pay as they come and when we can afford to pay them. I know if we stick to our budget and reduce our spending we have the money to pay them, but if it is the middle of the month I cant necissarily say okay I will hold off on paying anything until the beginning of the month to start fresh and say okay paycheck #1 pays this. I guess I just feel like if we could have extra money in the bank with all of our bills being paid then I could start. I have had this budget in mind for months now but feel like I can never start it because as soon as we get a paycheck it is gone trying to catch up on bills that were due a week ago. Am I making any since? I guess I am just confused on how you initially started to budget.

So this is my budget. I know I am probably missing a few misc items, but I did over budget on the "fun" money for those things. As far as car repair it does not cost becaues my husband works in a shop. Haircuts he does himself and I have a friend do mine for free. According to my budget we have around 300 left over a month, but in real life we never do. I know this is due to us not watching our money and blowingit on crap. I talked with my dh last night and we have decided to write down every single penny we spend in a log book for 1 month so we can physically see where it is going. Even my 60 cents I spend on pop at the vending machine. That way we can get a better handle on stuff. I know we have a lot of credit cards. We hve made some real big mistakes and are feeling it now. That is why this is so important to us that we start acting like responsible adults. (We are in our late 20's early 30's) so it is about time. So any advice is greatly appreciated.

Capital One $288.00
Bassett 60.00
Wamu 48.00
CitiCard 107.00
Capital One 40.00
Dell 18.00
Chase 130.00
Truck 399.00
Insurance 150.00 will go down about 80 bucks in april
Daycare 300.00
Car 390.00 my lease is up in april so we are buying a cheap van with cash
Cingular 120.00 we have 3 lines but get paid the 25 bucks from someone for the line
Rent 350.00
Water 30.00
Trash 18.00
Life Insurance 28.00
Power/Gas 200.00
Cable 160.00
Groceries 400.00
Gas $250.00
Fun 200.00
Gym 20.00 my only thing I would hate to give up, it is my releif and i need to loose weight
Savings 50.00
$3,756.00
We bring home $4035.

[jIM_Ohio]

This was my original post from yesterday. I had such great advice on that thread from everyone that I didnt want to post my budget on that thread and take the chance of the great responders on there missing it. I will post my budget below.

Post from Yesterday:
Hello everyone, I am new here and I look forward to hearing everyones thoughts.

Dh and I are starting a budget so we can pay off some debt. I know what we have to do and I have actually made a really good broken out budget in excel. Dh gets paid weekly and I get paid bi weekly. I have figured that his paycheck will cover the weekly expenses like daycare, gas, groceries, etc but my question is this.

How do you first start off. I have it (on paper) to where I can say okay, dh's first paycheck of the month will pay bill 1,2,and 3. My first paycheck pays bills 7,8,9 and so on and so on according to their due dates. but as of right now we are never "caught up" we pay as they come and when we can afford to pay them. I know if we stick to our budget and reduce our spending we have the money to pay them, but if it is the middle of the month I cant necissarily say okay I will hold off on paying anything until the beginning of the month to start fresh and say okay paycheck #1 pays this. I guess I just feel like if we could have extra money in the bank with all of our bills being paid then I could start. I have had this budget in mind for months now but feel like I can never start it because as soon as we get a paycheck it is gone trying to catch up on bills that were due a week ago. Am I making any since? I guess I am just confused on how you initially started to budget.

So this is my budget. I know I am probably missing a few misc items, but I did over budget on the "fun" money for those things. As far as car repair it does not cost becaues my husband works in a shop. Haircuts he does himself and I have a friend do mine for free. According to my budget we have around 300 left over a month, but in real life we never do. I know this is due to us not watching our money and blowingit on crap. I talked with my dh last night and we have decided to write down every single penny we spend in a log book for 1 month so we can physically see where it is going. Even my 60 cents I spend on pop at the vending machine. That way we can get a better handle on stuff. I know we have a lot of credit cards. We hve made some real big mistakes and are feeling it now. That is why this is so important to us that we start acting like responsible adults. (We are in our late 20's early 30's) so it is about time. So any advice is greatly appreciated.

Capital One $288.00
Bassett 60.00
Wamu 48.00
CitiCard 107.00
Capital One 40.00
Dell 18.00
Chase 130.00
Truck 399.00
Insurance 150.00 will go down about 80 bucks in april
Daycare 300.00
Car 390.00 my lease is up in april so we are buying a cheap van with cash
Cingular 120.00 we have 3 lines but get paid the 25 bucks from someone for the line
Rent 350.00
Water 30.00
Trash 18.00
Life Insurance 28.00
Power/Gas 200.00
Cable 160.00
Groceries 400.00
Gas $250.00
Fun 200.00
Gym 20.00 my only thing I would hate to give up, it is my releif and i need to loose weight
Savings 50.00
$3,756.00
We bring home $4035.

Can you list the credit card balances and interest rates, please?

[genmed]

The credit card rates and amounts would help, but also how many are in your family?

My concerns are that when you say you have $300 extra, you have none at the end of the months and your savings are $50, which is something to start with, but doesn't give you any room if you need to let's say replace the tires or get service on one of your vehicles. Is there a way you could cut another $50-100 from your budget maybe by reducing your grocery bill by 10-20, fun amount by 10-20, getting rid of a cable channel, and/or possibly look at your phone bill to remove a feature or cut down slightly on the minutes. If you saved that extra amount a month by just trimming a little from each category, you would have some money saved for unexpected emergencies, routine maintenance, medical care. Right now if something were to happen, I would be concerned where you could get the extra money from?

[disneysteve]

I'm guessing cable includes internet, but even so that's way too much. Switch to the most basic cable service. Around here, with tax it is $11.10/month. You can still get cable internet which is about another $40, I think. That would free up $100/month that could go to debt reduction and savings.

Logging your spending is a great idea. In fact, it is an absolute must if there is $300/month that you can't account for. Buying soda for $.60 from a machine is easily replaced with buying a 12-pack on sale for $2.50 which is only $.21 each or switiching to store brand for $.10 each. The only way you can identify things like that, though, is to review that spending log in detail.

[disneysteve]

Do either of you currently contribute to an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401k or 403b?

What about health insurance?

[anonymous_saver]

So in April are we to assume that you will have an extra $470 (lower cost insurance and no car payment) a month (in addition to the $300 left over each month)? If so, that is an extra $770 a month!

(1) First, I would call all of the credit card companies and try to lower your interest rate, it couldn't hurt you to at least try.

(2) I would make sure that you have at least 3-6 month emergency fund, especially because you have a child.

(3) I would make sure both of you are contributing at least to the match in your 403(b)/401(k). Plus, I would focus on putting the max into a Roth IRA each year (maybe in a year from now when you get some of this debt paid off, maybe not). Since you are in your late 20's and early 30's, I would say saving for retirement is a HUGE factor in all of these goals.

(4) After these goals, I would aggressively put extra money towards your highest interest debt, it would be useful to know your interest rates and total amount of each loan.

(5) Your cable bill freaked me out. Is there any way you can cut some of this down? Or at the very least in half? If you have this much debt, I would probably cut these kind of costs out of your budget for 1-2 years, and then you can get the "fun stuff" again when you have less debt.

(6) Cut costs here and there as well. For example, pay attention to how much electricity or water you use - don't always turn the lights on when you don't need it, don't have the TV on when you arn't watching, cut your shower down by 1-2 minutes per shower. See how much this effects you after doing this for a month. At this point, I would say if it saved you $10/month, it would be worth it. Also, try cutting down your costs on groceries. I know personally, I sometimes have a problem when I throw away produce at the end of the week, so maybe time your grocery visits more appropriately (for example, instead of going every 7 days, go every 8 days - hey it could help!).

Good luck! I hope some of this can help you.

[mommyonamission]

My health insurance is taken out of my check. I work for the company.
I also contribute to 401K Only 3% right now. They match. I just started 1 year ago.

As far as balances go on credit cards. YIKES I am afraid to admit this.....
Capital One $288.00 Balance is $10,000
Bassett 60.00 Balance is $2,500
Wamu 48.00 Balance is $1,000
CitiCard 107.00 Balance is $2,500
Capital One 40.00 Balance is $1,000
Dell 18.00 Balance is $200
Chase 130.00 Balance is $5,000
For a grand total of 22,200. These are estimates. It has been awhile since I looked, my dh used to take care of bills but I am now. I know most of them were maxed out though. I am not sure of the interest rates but I know most of them are at least in the 20% because we have been late a few times.
Would it be worth my time trying a consolidation of some sort? The only thing is we rent so we can not do a mortage loan and we do not have any collateral to just get a loan.

[anonymous_saver]

What about your husband's 401(k)?

I would not consolidate your loans, some of the loans are so small (for example, $200) that I don't think it would be the best thing for you to do at this time.

Get out of debt calculator Try using this get out of debt calculator once you gather all of your interest rates. It can help you see how long it will take you to pay all of your debt.

Snowball debt calculator - Become debt free at WhatsTheCost.com or this one may be better.

[jIM_Ohio]

$22,000 at $300/extra/month suggests it will take ~7 years to pay them off.

that's simple math, might be sooner or later depending on interest rates.

I would concentrate on "low hanging fruit". Do a few easy things to get yourself into the payoff mode. For example payoff dell, frees up $18 each month. If you get a windfall ($1000), pay off one of the balances and free up another $48 or so each month.

If you can consolidate and/or lower rates, that will be a good move. You're monthly minimums are $691/month.

If you can free up as much of this $691 to go towards paying down debt, your money will be working for you.

I would then try to pay off some of the smaller cards.
I don't agree on keeping cash in savings (for emergencies) while you have minimum debts racking up 20% interest. This is my opinion and different people on this board will have different opinions.

Money works best if you pay down highest interest rate loans fastest. There may be tradeoff to paying off Dell, for example and using that $18 to accelerate paying off a debt.

Make it a point to "stop financing". Your rent is cheap and income is high... you can fix this. Just take it one debt at a time. Pay one off, then pay off another. Others here have given great suggestions to squeeze more out of the budget. The more you squeeze, the faster you can get these paid off.

[fairy74]

a few more suggestions, cut down on cable like everyone said, cut out the gym for now (don't give up fitness, walking/running are free) but get your financial house in order first, figure out how much you really are spending on "fun" and try to cut back (use the library, natural resources, etc...), see if you can cut down on food, how many people are you feeding? DH and I (two adults and I'm pregnant) eat really well for $160 per month (or less, usually less) it requires planning and cooking, but is easily manageable.

This is great that you are getting your financial life in order. I also agree it is imperative to see where the holes are, so you can fix them....Good luck and don't get discouraged, you can do it

[Scanner]

Why do you need 3 lines for the phone?

I don't see a "landline" phone so I can figure that you need a reasonable plan for a cellphone but I am trying to figure out why you need 3 lines at $120 month minus 25 = $95/month.

The reason I ask is even for my business, I only have one landline and an ability to hunt to another line.

I know I'm not the most social guy but I am trying to figure out who's yacking to whom here for $100/month.

[Aleta]

If you knew what your interest rates are, it would help us alot to see whicb one's you should be trying to pay down. You just have to make a list and eliminate one bill at a time. I suggest the smallest one being Dell at $18.00. Then you will take that $18. plus the minimum on the next one on your list and continue paying on it. Meantime, your other debts are being paid down at the same time. Also, like many have said here, you have said how much you have left over a month, so that is extra money to paid on your debt list. Also, it would be a good idea to try to spend less in as many variable expenses as you can. Once you start, it gets easier for you to come up with ideas to reduce your expenditures. Mainly, know that everyone here has had to go through what you are now and it is doable. The fact that you're seeking help is great. There are a lot of people here with a lot of knowledge.

[scrava]

Scanner, 3 people have the cell phones.
OP & her H and a 3rd person who gives them $ towards the phone.

I haven't read your other post yet but here's some of my thoughts:

-Do either of your jobs offer child care reimbursement plans?
Where you could have money taken out pretax to pay for childcare?
There's no free $ for you but at least you would be paying /w pre-tax $.

-Def. shop the sales at the grocery store. Try to figure out the best price for meats, when they go on sale for that amount, stock up & freeze.
Buy your cereal, canned goods, frozen item when at the best price.
Use coupons. Ask freinds and family to save coupons for you.

-Def. cut down the TV. get movies or use your vcr (if you have one) to tape shows. I would keep my interet.

-Use this time to declutter and sell that stuff from your apartment on craigs list or ebay or amazon.

-I know it's only $20 but I would give up the gym and start walking and/or doing aerobics at home. Tis couldpossibly tie-in w/ try to cut down on gas per month. I know it's hard, but even 20% less would really help your budget.

-I read your question about how to make itto the start of a month w/o being behind at all. I think you just have to be a total tight wad and spend almost no $ for personal things to help you get there. Don't spend any cash and pay the minimum on bills do between now & the start of next month so that when you start you will be almost at 100%.

It's tough! when dh&I moved to this house 4 years ago we had many many weeks where we paid our bills, bought groceries & gas and that was it! You can do it, too!!

When we first

[PrincessPerky]

Awesome that you are writing stuff down, you will be amazed at where it went and how 'little' it felt like at the time!

Ditto buy a six-pack and take it or better still pack an insulated cup and fill with free water. Better for the diet you mentioned.

Ditto the cable is ridiculous; reduce it fast, you will hardly notice since you will be busy writing down what you spend and decluttering.

Ditto not to much cash on hand (bout 1 or 2 k for buffer in checking but no more IMO)

Ditto nice cheap rent! I wish I could have that...

Ditto pay off some smaller loans then sort bigger ones…the debate of highest interest vs. lowest amount first will wage eternal. Pick one and try it, if you change your mind later not that big a deal. (Post a poll here if you like and let majority rule… or flip a coin, but don’t fail to pay off while frozen with indecision)

The only thing I do NOT agree with is your gym membership IF you actively go, if you already go, then keep it up, cancel less healthy habits first, then later work on being healthy without it. Just call it your own little splurge and enjoy it as such while you pass that vending machine without paying a cent (again and again and again…)

[Scanner]

Scanner, 3 people have the cell phones.
OP & her H and a 3rd person who gives them $ towards the phone.

Why isn't the third person paying 1/3 of $120 then?

Okay, just a suggestion but get one cell phone and use a tracphone if your "H" feels compelled to have a cellphone with him to reach you.

I dunno - that bill jumped out at me, as well as cable.

I mean, that's $1000 per year for cellphone.

Good luck.