Reworking the budget and coming up short

[Cricketlegs]

Okay, so from your responses you seem as a whole to think that $600 a month savings is a small amount and not enough?

I have 15 months to pay off debt number 3 or I pay interest on the whole note of $3800. I so do not want to pay interest on that note. I want it gone fast and at $350 it will be. It will be gone this year freeing up the $350 to hit that smaller student loan which is currently paid up 8 months in advance.

As to the allowances. If we lose them(or lower them) we WILL blow our budget. That amount has been tweaked until I found the right amount we needed. I want to protect the budget at all costs. I am pretty much a zero balance bill payer. When it's gone it's gone. That is what has allowed me to pay off so much debt years and months faster because I tend to not let money sit. Well; except what is in savings.

I have to know what is going out and the allowances, at the amount I know we can get through the month on, keep that happening. It's like paying the electric bill for me, it's a budgeted amount that happens every month so no surprises.

If I can pay off my debt early(2 this year) and add $7200.00 into savings apart from the baby Ef,without budgeting dhs raise, am I really doing that bad with the finances?

We have nice things but we live a small life. We enjoy simple things. We have a small home, we drive used cars(although dh did get a new truck) the camper was used, the boat, well the boat was very expensive, and yes we do help our kiddos with college but two get free tuition so it is not a huge amount of money there. Usually living expenses or books or car repairs for them. We do pay car insurance on some, cell pones on others etc,

I am really enjoying your responses. Don't think I am shooting them down!

[Cricketlegs]

I also maybe should tell you that all clothing, haircuts, shopping,misc stuff I get for the house comes out of allowances for the most part.

There is no clothing line or haircut line on the budget columnar sheet.

[ladytoysdream]

I just have this strong desire to get some money in the bank. I feel antsy and need a security blanket.
The frugal gungho woman in me says debt bad kill debt grunt grunt grunt.....
If we were to not change our standard of living and needed 6 months expenses we would need $34200.00 in savings.

I think this post of yours says a lot.
Money in bank is a GOOD thing.
Debt gone .
Standard of living sounds real important to you.

You seem to be at a crossroads. Wanting all 3 at once.
You will have to prioritize and have some patience.

My suggestions/thoughts.
Cut back on some of the extras in your budget.
Build the savings faster.

Take some of your allowance and not spend it.
A mini savings account for you. If you need it, you have it.
If you don't need it, it will continue building till you do need it.

Sounds like your bills will be paid off in a timely manner.
When you get your camper paid off, use that payment to go against the next one.

Your back up plan....
so what happens if your husband gets sick or hurt and can't work for awhile ? I hope you have good health insurance. And how would the money keep coming in.

I mention this because my husband got hurt just less than a week ago. And ended up seeing a orthropedic surgeon and is having a MRI today. Very probably some kind of surgery in the near future. He does have very good health insurance, thank goodness. He has personal/vacation/sick hours built up at work, so that should cover him for just over a month. One of our bills has insurance on it, so it would be paid. A good decent stockpile of food. I think we could go about 3 months before I would be pulling my hair out. Currently a lot of *what ifs* are running through my head.

[Natalia]

What about providing an incentive for dd on the loans or tuition? I don't know if she is stillin school but i was planning to tell my ds whatever he can save for university that dh and i will match. They arent formally your problem ( most parents dont pay their kids student loans) so it may be a good idea to have dd responsible for at least some of the repayment.

[Cricketlegs]

Right off the top of my budget I very quickly figured if the "bad" were to happen I can cut $2000 out of my monthly budget and then some more given a little thought.

My dh has excellent health insurance. He also has aflack (spelling?)

I have 3 savings acoounts. The main EF is at $1200. Dds car needed repair so that took $700 away from the original $1900 that was in there for a rainy day.

I have $400 cash here in the house for the zombies. I plan to add $400 each month to that account until I decide I feel comfortable, probably $1000 and then I will start putting the rest into the 1st account and turn that account onto the 6 month EF and away from the baby Ef. This cash fund should finish in march and I will start the following. See below-

I then have a small savings account hooked to my checking that has $200 in it. I want that one to be $1000 and become the baby Ef. I add $200 a month into that one. Once the cash fund is established i'll roll the rest of the $400 into this account to get it to the $1000.

After that it will just be the Big 6 month Ef I will be working on.

[Cricketlegs]

What about providing an incentive for dd on the loans or tuition? I don't know if she is stillin school but i was planning to tell my ds whatever he can save for university that dh and i will match. They arent formally your problem ( most parents dont pay their kids student loans) so it may be a good idea to have dd responsible for at least some of the repayment.

She is actually here because she got very ill and almost died. She wants to go back and finish and I know she will. Her tuition and books were paid for and she also worked hard and got grants and things because of it. Her dad and I are no longer married and the deal was he paid half and I paid half. We took her grants off the bottom number and split them.

My dd does work.

I WANT to send my kids to school. It is just something I want to do for them and none of us(Me, her dad,my dh or her step mom want our kiddos starting life in debt.)


My step dd gets good grants and works. We help out by paying her car insurance and cell phone and her nanny bought her car for her(in my dhs name) and we help out some with books, car repairs, blah blah whatever life throws at us.

Our youngest is still in high school which is why I want to get dds loans gone before the other starts although she has informed us she wants 2 years JR college her at home first and since her tuition and books are paid for she should have zero expenses if she is living at home with her Mama and Daddy!

[Wendy99]

[QUOTE=Cricketlegs;1607814]Right off the top of my budget I very quickly figured if the "bad" were to happen I can cut $2000 out of my monthly budget and then some more given a little thought.
/QUOTE]

$2000 cut out of the budget is not the same as $2000 cash in an emergency. If you are able to cut $2000 out of your monthly budget, why not try to save $1000 to $1500 more a month and be where you need to be that much faster. Just imagine the end feeling of no debt and a hefty pile of savings!!!

Just saying my dh had a great factory job awhile back. Had we been wise then with money, we wouldn't be where we are now. A paycheck in today, could be gone tomorrow. Never depend on future income, live in the present (while preparing for the future).

[nodmicks]

I don't think anyone can say you are doing anything wrong. It obviously works for you and that is what matters.

Personal finance is just that personal and we all have a different way of doing and looking at things. I personally am a safety freak.

I had to really stop myself from letting anyone's idea or opinions make me feel anything negative when I posted my whole budget and asked for ideas where to cut. I learned a lot even if I was a stinker and would only reveal spending and not income.

So if you could quickly cut 2000 from the budget does that plus your savings give you a months expenses? The only reason I use a month is assuming your Dh has long and short term disability insurance is that most policies take 30 days to kick in on the short term policy. One never knows when an injury or illness can strike.

[Cricketlegs]

To cut $2000 from my budget I would lose tv, internet, savings, allowances,cell phones, alarm ,storage, netflix, dds lunches,fuel for dds car,some cash from grocery, camper electric bill, and all the bells and whistles that we enjoy that make life pleasant for us.

Things we can afford with money left at the end of the month after savings and bills are paid.

To go into survival mode when we are doing better than survival and actually paying off debt at a fast early rate(some as early as 13 months ahead and paying off 2 next month) and increasing savings seems so drastic.

Why should I sit around starting at the whites of my family's eyes when we can watch satelite tv and we can AFFORD that tv easily? This is just an example.

I understand people get hurt and sick and have job loss and natural disasters happen. I just don't want to go into extremes that will make us all unhappy for no reason other than the "what may happen".

That is what the savings is for right? I am saving. I feel like I am saving at a good rate. I feel like I am paying debt off at a nice rate.

I've been the single mother with nothing and a low paying job. I've been the young married wife and mother with more bills than money. I've pinched pennies and scraped and banged my head against the wall.

I still watch the bills, use coupons, stockpile, buy 2nd hand clothing and home decor, I turn off lights. Shop the sales. I don't idle my car. I am very frugal.

Now as I age things get better. I get smarter and I live easier and I want to enjoy that.

We don't go on vacations, we go to the camper. The one that is one payment away from being ours. It was used but a great deal and we have so many great memories there. So yes I want that camper. It was debt sure, unessasary debt sure, but worth it to us.

I could go on and on but then I would be dull and boring so I won't!

I understand the responses I have gotten in this post because I have lived some of them. I know some of us are at the place where there is no room for any extras and that every one of us is doing the very best that they can with what their standard of living reality is for them.

[Natalia]

i think the problem here is your title. reworking the budget and coming up short..makes it sound like you want advice on trimming the budget, which you clearly do not.

it took rereading your OP to notice you did not want to trim anything, only to see if itd be better to plug more into saving or debt repayment.
personally i would allocate it to debt repayment unless you thought the income was not secure. you say income is secure, but would feel better with a bigger safety net. so, meet yourself halfway. put $300 extra to debt and $300 extra to savings.

[nodmicks]

I really didnt mean you should cut any of that. I just wondered if worst case scenario those cuts plus savings would allow you to pay a month of bills if anything happened to hubby.

I promise I am not knocking your choices. We have like incomes but I admit I am a safety freak ( cant relax without a full ef), pack the retirement accounts and am anti debt like it is a religion. My apologies if any of my posts came off pushy.

[Cricketlegs]

Not one single post here came off as pushy! No ones did.

I welcome all opinions.

[nodmicks]

Good Cricket! I would feel terrible if I was sounding bossy/ judgey. It is so hard to convey tone in the written word.

[SheKat]

I think you are doing fine, we are all different in the way we do our financial planning. For me i have a FFEF and then a little bit more, but i still carry a CC debit that I won't use my FFEF to pay off. I racked up the CC on stupid debit and I feel that its more a learning punishment If I have to cut back on my lifestyle to pay it back, rather than just make it disappear as if by magic from my FFEF - iykwim.

I would get rid of those two debit that are close to being paid off, then save the rest inc the snowball and when your 0% interest come close to be charged the interest withdraw it from your savings and pay it off. This way the money that you would send to the 0% interest is actually earning you some interest, sure it might only be $50 over the 10 months, but that is like free money.

I wouldn't cut you blow money at all, you are so right about that if you didn;t have it you would go over budget and as you say it's only $8 per day each and when you factor in clothing, hair cuts etc that not heaps at all.

[Cricketlegs]

I think you are doing fine, we are all different in the way we do our financial planning. For me i have a FFEF and then a little bit more, but i still carry a CC debit that I won't use my FFEF to pay off. I racked up the CC on stupid debit and I feel that its more a learning punishment If I have to cut back on my lifestyle to pay it back, rather than just make it disappear as if by magic from my FFEF - iykwim.

I would get rid of those two debit that are close to being paid off, then save the rest inc the snowball and when your 0% interest come close to be charged the interest withdraw it from your savings and pay it off. This way the money that you would send to the 0% interest is actually earning you some interest, sure it might only be $50 over the 10 months, but that is like free money.

I wouldn't cut you blow money at all, you are so right about that if you didn;t have it you would go over budget and as you say it's only $8 per day each and when you factor in clothing, hair cuts etc that not heaps at all.

You hit the nail right on the head which was the whole purpose of the thread lol! I NEED the money I am coming up short with to get the snowball really going the way I wanted which forced me to decide between the savings or the smaller snowball!

I want to have my cake and eat it too. Who knows I may end up having both but regardless the debts will get paid and the savings will increase.

I don't want to sit on the 0% interest debt and rely on savings to pay it off in case we have an emergency and then I don't have it to pay. I would worry myself to death. Trust me on that. I NEED to SEE things happening there for simple peace of mind lol!