January 2017 Budget & Debt Update

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten on here and updated you all, and for that I’m sorry.  January came and went, and we had gotten back to our normalcy.  I was even able to get in here and get a bunch of drafts started to post throughout February.  Then someone, no idea who, brought home some more germs with Hubs and I being down for the count, and the return of strep to this household.

I’m glad to say we’re up and at ’em again.  Kind of.  Their school bus schedule is even back to it’s normal 6:50 time now with the opening of temporary bridges after the flooding we had in October.  While our shortest route to town is still the long way around, they’re at least back to a somewhat normal schedule again.  You would not believe how much a 30 minute delay in pick-up time can throw off a schedule!

Anyways… January 2017 brought lots of changes to our budget.  The biggest change was our take home income decreasing.  But the great news is that after making an extra payment on our second credit card last month, we weren’t limited to forecasting how much I can pay on the card by the due date, and then end up being wrong at the end of the month.

Since I was not dependent on a due date, I waited until all of our income for the month was in, our bills were paid and our weekly savings and spending was done.  I then went through and reconciled the account and saw what we had left over for the month that hadn’t been allocated.  That’s the amount that I used as our snowball payment for the month.  And honestly, I enjoyed it.  There was a lot less anxiety involved in the end.  {And since this is a new way we’re budgeting, one of the posts I’m currently working on is a step by step explanation of how we’re now budgeting.}

So that got me thinking.  When our smaller remaining student loan is on the chopping block, I think I’ll use the same method.  The due date on this loan is currently advanced 3 months out, but I keep paying on it each month.  I keep paying because the entire payment is going to interest, and sadly, it’s not combating all the interest that is accumulating.  It’s close, but not even.  The very dark side of student loans.  And debt in general.  It’s like a legitimate, in repayment kind of forbearance.  And I refuse to make that same mistake again.

So if I leave this due date as advanced, I can make the snowball payment at the end of the month after reconciling the month’s budget.  I won’t be limited to a payment due date at all.  Using this method may eliminate the need to have a 1 month income saved up for the time being.  Now while we will still be saving up a 1 month income, it may be possible to not need it right away.  That would be awesome.

All that being said… how did we do for the month?  We ended up paying off $1,884.41 in debt this month.  Not bad with our reduced income, and it’s really close to my $1,900 debt paid per month goal!

Credit Card 2:   $1,219.41
Student Loans:  $165
Mortgage:  $500

So to break it down even further, here’s how our January budget went.

Income

Salary: $3,689.69
This is our take home income for this month.

Monthly Expenses

Mortgage**:  $500

Cell Phone:   $47.42

Home Phone / Internet:  $75.30

Credit Card 1:   $79.69
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**:   $1,219.41
This month we were able to pay a lot more on this credit card than we had been throughout the summer and it felt really good!

Student Loans**:  $165

Electric:  $99.37
Cooler weather has arrived, and it’s showing in our electric bill!  It’s on the decline, and it’ll continue to do so as we fire up the wood stove for the winter.

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.

 

Savings

Each month I put an allotted amount of money into our savings accounts to pay for expenses that vary throughout the year.  This is a breakdown of what we put away in the account throughout the month, as well as any expenses through the month that came from that account.

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.

Clothing: $29.98

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: $71.63
Our family has two January birthdays.  This month we also had a birthday party with family.

Additional Expenses

Groceries:  $475.66
You can see what was on our meal plan for the month here.

Fuel:  $69.48
With holidays and sports over, our fuel bill is back to a reasonable amount for the month.

Eat Out: $28.70
This is split between two instances: $15.90 dinner out with Hubs earlier in the month; $12.80 with LadyBug at the end of the month.

Household: $30.81
This was spent on contact solution, ziploc bags, and trash bags.

Pre-K: $8.98
Lady Bug and I stopped at Michael’s for some supplies for a preschool craft.

Band: $9.49
Bookworm needed the second trumpet book for band this month.

Home Repair: $27.41
After replacing the light in our bedroom, we installed a second light switch and patched the wall.

 

Overall, I think we did really well for January considering we started the month with a few unknowns on how our income would be changing.  I’m hoping that with the new changes in our budgeting technique as well, we can continue to smash our debt one account at a time.