For February’s budget, our expenses started before the month did. At the end of January, I knew that we would have some extra expenses that we normally don’t have each month. February was also the first month we had that each paycheck was consistent in our newly reduced income. Last month the checks reduced little by little with the changes we made.
We also had sick kids all throughout the month, with different sickies. While most of it was simple head colds, Monkey started the month with strep and ended it with a double ear infection, which required additional doctor’s visits and prescriptions. This post is unusually late in the day because Lady Bug has come down with the crud too, and we did a lot of snuggling all morning.
By the time I was “over” with the month, which was a little too early for the month to decide it was over, I reconciled our budget and zero’d it out. And I based our snowball payment off of that. The thing is, is that we had even more expenses right up to the very last day of the month. And we had expenses that we didn’t account for throughout the month, and that didn’t have a specific sinking fund set up for them.
These extra expenses varied from little things like more fuel than initially anticipated {with the extra trips to town}, to bigger things like a new light bulb for our security light.
Each of these expenses that came up, it made it really easy to let our budget get away from us. As a matter of fact, we overspent. Yep, we went over budget and dipped into what I like to call our buffer.
One of the biggest questions I see when people first hear of zero budgeting is whether we take our account down to a zero balance. The answer? It all depends on personal preference.
We choose to leave a buffer. I started leaving a buffer because sometimes a bill would clear before the date I specified, and there wasn’t enough in the account to cover it. When this happens, our bank pulls the money from our main savings account. While we don’t get charged an overdraft charge, it’s REALLY easy for the money to be moved over automatically, and REALLY easy to forget to move it back
So this is why we have a buffer. But in February, we dipped into it. And you know what? That’s okay.
It’s okay. March brings a new slate, a new budget, and new opportunities. One of those opportunities is to make up the buffer. As a matter of fact, it is at the top of the list for our March goals.
All that being said… how did we do for the month? We ended up paying off $1,650.23 in debt this month, which was over the $1,500 debt I wanted to pay this month.
Credit Card 2: $970.23
Student Loans: $180
Mortgage: $500
This brings our total debt repayment to just under $70,000!
So to break it down even further, here’s how our February budget went.
Income
Salary: $3,542.32
Monthly Expenses
Mortgage**: $500
Cell Phone: $47.43
Home Phone / Internet: $75.19
The majority of our bill is for internet service. After some research, there are no other service providers for our specific location. I could pay for dish internet, and while the speeds would theoretically increase, the connectivity is more unreliable than what we currently have.
Credit Card 1: $63.17
The payments on this are reoccurring bills whose payments are made online that we don’t feel safe enough leaving our bank information in their account records.
Credit Card 2**: $970.23
My payment on this is a little lower than last month because of extra expenses we incurred this month, which are broken down below. In retrospect, it should have been less than this since I goofed up and reconciled the budget early. I explain in our March goals post how we’re fixing it this month.
Student Loans**: $180
Electric: $100.53
Insurance: $241.52
Our insurance payment includes our car, house, and life insurance policies.
Piano Lessons: $0
Bookworm’s piano lessons are a generous gift from my mother-in-law.
Newspaper Subscription: $13.45
Our monthly, weekend only subscription.
Additional Expenses
Groceries: $656.69
You can read more about what we ate throughout February and why our expenses were a little higher this month here.
Fuel: $130.51
I hoped our fuel bill would go down this month, but between doctor’s appointments and having to take the long way to town to washed out bridges, that didn’t happen.
Shoe Resole: $115
Hubs needed to get his work boots resoled, which was much cheaper than buying a new pair of boots.
Heat: $84.14
Our main heat source is a wood stove, and we are able to get our wood from family land. This cost is for chainsaw fuel, a new chainsaw chain, as well as a chain sharpener.
Pet: $20.64
Stamps: $9.80
Some bills we still send in old fashioned like… through the mail, with a check. And that requires stamps!
Family Night: $60.82
Security Light: $26.41
It’s not a cheap bulb folks, but it’s necessary. We live in a wooded area, and as it happens, there’s woods right next to our driveway and wood shed. Since we do go out at night to fill up the wood stove, it’s nice to know what’s in the woods next to us, or on the driveway. There’s coyotes, bears and lynx where we live. While the coyotes tend to keep their distance, the lynx and bears do not. And I don’t dare mess with Pooh bear.
Piano: $21.25
While Hub’s mom pays for Bookworm’s piano lessons, I do pay for his new books. He moved up a level, and that required new books.
Miscellaneous: $9.80
This accounts for smaller expenses throughout the month, such as cough drops,
Savings
Each month I put an allotted amount of money into our savings accounts to pay for expenses that vary throughout the year. Here, you’ll find a break down of what we put away in the account throughout the month, as well as any expenses through the month that came from that account. Keep in mind that what we put into the account each week is not a representation of the account balance.
Annual Savings Account: $360
Every week I put money aside into this account, and on months with an extra paycheck, I put even more into this account. Some months we don’t use anything that I put aside, other months we use a lot. To read more on how much we try to put aside and what we use it for, you can check out this post.
Prescriptions: $11.60
This covers the cost of two rounds of antibiotics for Monkey’s strep and ear infections
Clothing: $22.23
I was able to find some leggings on clearance at Kohl’s for Lady Bug, as well as some tops. She is finally growing like a weed, which means we’re out of most 3T clothes, but she seems to have gone right into a size 4.
Gifting Savings: $240
I also add money to our gifting account each week. It helps us to stay on budget each month and still have funds available for when birthdays and holidays come up.
Birthday Parties: $36.70
Bookworm was invited to a few birthday parties this month; this covers the cost of the presents/SPCA donations as well as the skate rental.
If you’re doing the math, you’ll see that we overspent this month by nearly $423. When I ran through our March goals, I knew that there were some expenses I hadn’t taken out of our sinking funds yet, like clothing and prescriptions. But the fact remains, throughout March we have to make up $423 of our buffer, and that’s before we apply any money to our debt snowball.
Well… there you have it. A complete rundown of how our budget and debt repayment went throughout the month. How did your February 2017 budget & debt repayment go?
Leave a Reply