Let's get naked! (financially)

[Ani]

I've been debating posting this thread for a few weeks now, for fear of offending someone, but I'd really like some constructive criticism, and I figure there are others like me that would like the same. If anyone doesn't want to do this, they can certainly just avoid the thread.

Here is my challenge...we should get naked in front of each other financially. Show your budget. Show your debts (balances, interest rates etc). Show your plans. Show your assets. Let's help each other find holes and leaks in our budgets and tighten them up. We need to be very careful how we go about providing the criticism, and anyone who participates needs to be open to constructive criticism.

Is anyone with me?

I'll go first, I need to gather my information, and then I'll post it in a reply.

*starts taking off my financial shirt and looks around to see if anyone is joining me in this financial skinny-dip*

[cheappearls]

I'm with ya!

Our total monthly income is about $2500 (roughly. DH just got promoted so it's still evening out). I'm a SAHM with our 2 boys.

My budget:

Rent: $650
Cell phone: $68
Cable tv and internet: $75.06
Car payment: $288.43
Insurance: $130
Eletric: $50
Water: $52
Gas: $125
Capital One: $15
Food/toiletries/gas: $500-600 depending on what we need.
Savings: $100+

Our capital one card has about $500 on it with a 21% interest rate. I know it's horrible but being young it was all we qualifed for at the time. We are going to see about getting a better card with lower interest and leave capital one alone.

Our car loan is $11,242.57 with a 9% interest. We just got our truck in December and have only made one payment on it. It will be paid off in full by the end of 2008. DH is getting deployed the end of this year and all extra money from that is going to to truck first. Anything extra after is for savings to buy Dh a new truck when he gets home.

Our savings account is crap right now. I think it's around $60. I have a $100 check written out to go in but I'm waiting until our taxes come back because $2000 of that is going in too. Saving gas by only making one trip to the bank.

Our federal tax money ($5157) is going to pay off our c.c with enough left over for savings (above) plus a few fun things that we have been wanting for a while and maybe an extra payment to the truck. We haven't filed state because TaxCut didn't have the update for Oklahoma yet but we should be doing that this weekend.

We want to save up money for a down payment on a house. We will be moving back to our hometown in 3 or 4 years so we have until then to really boost up savings.

That's all I can think about now. If I forgot something let me know.

[Sahmamma]

I would love to do this too, but have to wait a little bit. right now we are paying rent and a construction loan from the house we are building. Hopefully we will be moving within the next two weeks, then I will know the exact amount of our mortgage and other living expenses in a different home. I can't wait!

[Ani]

Budget

Gross Monthly Income: $7083 (not including bonuses, overtime, or the bit of income we get from other very part time jobs/endeavors)

Monthly Expenses:
Taxes (25%): $1770.75
401K (5%): $354.15 (plus company match of nearly 100% of that)
Tithing (10%): $708.30 (not an optional expense in my mind for religious reasons, so please don't suggest reducing that)
Employee Stock Purchase Plan (3%): $148.74
Medical Insurance: $46 (currently); $77 (after the baby)
Charitable Contribution to Church: $20 (another religious necessity)
Car Insurance: $167.03
Life Insurance: $22.04 (hubby and I each covered up to $400,000)
Prepaid Legal Insurance: $35.95
Car Payment: $165.56 (mother-in-law's car, ours is paid off)
Contribution to Mother-in-Law's Bills: $100
Mortgage: $1490 (includes an escrow for insurance and tax)
Home Heating: $105 (very large drafty house)
Electricity: $99
Garbage/Water/Sewer: $40
Community Taxes: $14
Internet Access: $67 (currently), $110 (after we get higher speed internet access and digital phone which will be required for me to work from home)
Cell Phone: $85 *ducks to avoid flying tomatoes* (keep in mind this covers 3 people)
Groceries/Toiletries/Pet Supplies/Paper Products: $400 (only 2 in our household, but we routinely feed 4 - 6 on a daily basis)
Gas for the Car: $100
Entertainment/Miscellaneous: $300 (eating out, clothing, "want" items, blow money, everything not necessary)
Savings Account for Baby: $150 (for college, not to be touched until age 18)
Projected Additional Expenses for Baby: $150 (diapers, medical copays, clothes etc)
Savings: $300 (sinking funds, freedom account, emergency funds, additional retirement savings etc)
Total: $6862.52(any additional left over goes to savings, random unplanned expenses, sometimes fun/gifts)


Debt

Mother-in-law's Car: $9102.38 as of January 15th (6% interest)
Mortgage: $207,000 as of January 1st (6.25% interest)

Assets

401K: $8400 as of January 1st (invested 85% index funds, 15% bonds)
ESPP: $3200 value in current portfolio, but eBay stock is currently down. Own a total of a couple thousand shares, some of which are at a loss currently.
Freedom Account/Sinking Funds: $530 (estimate need a total of $4500 for 2007)
Emergency Fund: $710 (funding to $1000, then going to contribute $40 a month thereafter to build a "buffer")
Home Remodeling Fund: $13,000 (will all by gone by the end of the summer, but the house will be finished!)


Rough Financial Plan

1. Finish saving $1000 emergency fund and then regularly add to it by $40/month.
2. Pay off mother-in-law's car. (by 2008)
3. Save for new siding, finishing the mother-in-law suite, replacing the windows, refinishing the basement apartment (after tenant with 5 cats moves out). ($40,000 total - by 2011)
4. Save fully funded emergency fund of $25,000 (by 2013).
5. Pay off mortgage (goal unsure, if company stock matures could be much sooner than anticipated)
6. Begin purchasing rental properties that provides passive income.

We plan to have a second child around 2010 - 2011. Estimate that our per-child expense is $250 - 300/month, including savings for that child.


Whew, okay, go at it. *prepares to be torn apart by helpful constructive criticism*

[kabin63]

I don't know if I am going to join, lol, but I like your idea. Very cute way to put things.

[Ani]

Tammi (cheappearls): I've looked through your post twice now, and it sounds like you have a very good idea of where you're at financially. I can't see anything that I personally find to be erroneous in your budget (way to go making $600 stretch for a family of 4 on all of the food and other items!). It sounds like you have some great plans for dealing with any debt, and your future savings plans are great as well. In my opinion, nicely done!

Sahmamma: Good luck with all of the changes! I'm excited to have you join us.

[cheappearls]

Ani, yours looks a lot better then mine. haha. But we just started saving up and don't own a house. We are both 20 (turning 21 in June) so we don't really have a lot to our names. But we are working on it.

It's great you can put away so much a month for a college fund. I'm hoping I can start up a college fund for my boys soon but I want to get a retirement fund set up first. They can get loans and grants for college, we can't do that for retirement.

$85 for a 3 people cell phone plan isn't bad at all! What company do you have? We pay just under $70 for 2 phones with Us Celluar just for the basic 1000 minute plan (we get free mobile to mobile so we hardly use our minutes. We can talk to each other and my mom without using any minutes).

We have life insurance and health insurance through the Army so it comes out of our pay check automatically so I don't even think about it.

That "constructive criticism" for ya? I didn't see anything really wrong with the way you have things, makes me think about our stuff a little more.

[Sahmamma]

thanks! glad to be here

[Ani]

Tammi: Mine does not look better! Yours looks a TON better than mine did at your age. Major kudos to you! We go through T-Mobile for our cell phone plan. We only have 600 minutes to share between the three of us, but hubby and I only use like 100 total, so the rest his mom uses. We want to look into a different plan that might be cheaper, but this works for now. That's totally awesome that the army takes care of your insurance and stuff too.

[pammy]

I'm pretty open about my finances, here I go:

Income: take home between $5,200-5,500 per month, depending

Monthly Expenses:
Mortgage: $467
Student Loan: $156 (currently up on the chopping block)
Electric: $245 (average monthly billed, total electric, high cost here)
Phone/satellite/net: $105
2nd phone: $25 (for family member who can't afford it)
Cells: $140 (stupid contract up in September, will not renew)
Water: $25
Netflix: $18 (entertainment)
Sirius for 3: $30 (dh drives a ton, not many stations around here)
Grocery for 3: $300 (include household items)
Gasoline: $100
Blow for dh and I: $300 (it's the grease that keeps the budget running)
__________________________
Total monthly expense: $1911

Irregular Known Expenses:
Taxes: $430 per year
Car insurance: $700 per year for dh and mine
House insurance $1000 per year

We pay these when they come due out of what's extra (the snowball) that month. No problem doing it this way. Christmas, oil change, birthdays.. I withdraw 'x' amount in cash from that budgets snowball when I can forsee them coming up.

Debts:
House: we owe $71,800 something
Student loan: currently just under 15k, waiting for 5k to hit the checking before I mail it, leaving just under 10k, am hoping it's paid off in the next 3 more months.
That's it!

Assets:
About 70k equity in the home.
3 paid for vehicles, all total about 12k together.
Rv, paid for, worth about 10k
Hubbie's 401(k), just over 13k in it so far.
Just brought my savings back down to 1k. *gulp*
Hubby has tons of tools and equipment and a few toys, at least 15k worth.

In the next few months I'll be debt-free except the mortgage, I can't wait!!! The above we've been able to accomplish by following Dave Ramsey's teachings. We've been gazelle, not super, but certainly not slacking. Especially when you consider we started with about $56k in debt 16 months ago and we're now down to (as of this afternoon when I write the check) just under $10k in debt. In that time our income has been at 65k, went down to a large amount of this time to 60.5k, and finally it's back in the last few months to about 80k. If I can do this, ANYONE can do this!!

[FrugalMomof3]

Well here goes:

Monthly Take Home: $1635

Mortgage $882 (this includes taxes and insurance as well)
Garbage: $25
Water: $25
Electric $57
Car Insurance: $50
Gas in Car: $80
Cable/Phone/Internet $130
Credit Cards: $25 (will be paid off this month - $2800)
Food: $75
Savings: $50

We do on occasion spend $10 a month on rental videos, that's once every 2-3 months. We dont dine out much or go to the movie theater either.

Please keep in mind our bills are not always the same each month so I estimated from past couple months. We are left with only $236 a month and DH is paid bi-weekly but we manage, there are times when he gets a bonus but I did not count that.

[cheappearls]

Ani: I was thinking about switching to T-mobile once our contract is up (end of the year) because it seems out of all of them they have better deals. You can check out myrateplan.com and you can pick out what you need and it shows you plans that fit.

And thanks. I have been really trying to keep us out of debt and on track, especially since it's really important to be to be home with my boys and the Army isn't the best paying job in the world but the benefits are good and it has given us a lot of stability. We watch our friends (both married and single) just blow money like it grows on trees. A good friend of mine admited they owe $15,000 in c.c debt alone! I stopped being jealous of their "lifestyle" right then.

Even my brother and his wife (they are both 29) are jealous of how comfortable we live on such a small income. I keep telling them they need to cut back on the extras and they would be able to do the same.

[cheappearls]

Holy bejeebies Tracy! $75 for food?! How do you manage that with 3 kids to feed? I have a hard time getting our food bill to $400.

[tlenad]

Okay I'm game...

Let's See Average Monthtly Budget

Income $3192.48
Health Insurance $59.70
401K Investment $159.52 (5% which is matched 100% by Company)
Taxes $734.78
Total from Pay checks After Taxes and Benefits $2238.48

Non Debt Expenses

Car Insurance $117.17

Cell Phone: $2.99 I'm lucky and work at the cell phone company and get a great plan for free. I just have to pay the taxes on it.

Groceries and Pet Expense: $200.00 Avg. I have two cats so this includes all their cat litter and cat food. Plus I have a 42 gallon fresh water fish tank with plants and fish, this covers the food, filters and upkeep of it as well. Plus any fishes I might want to add when it gets a bit warmer. Plus my half of the groceries for a three person house on Weight Watchers. I'm latcose interolant and my Dad just got diagnosed with Diabetes. Hopefully I can continue to keep it this low.

Cable/Internet: $99.39 I have a really nice Digital Cable package with Starz Movie Channel and the Sports Package which gives me Fox Soccer. Plus cable internet access. I'm still on a discounted plan from signing up for the digital cable. They keep extending it by 3 months but once they stop, I'll probably cancel the Starz and maybe even shop around for a better deal via Satelite.

Gasoline: $150-$200

Electric - $108


Debts:

Car Loan : Current Balance $2,892.54 Minimum Payment 413.22 I have seven more payments left on the life of this loan. I am literally counting down the months until this is paid off. I honestly have no idea about the interest rate on this thing. Sadly I'm too lazy to call, so I just multipled the payment amount by the remaining payments to get the amount. Nearly all of it is going to priniciple now anyway.

Student Loan: $11,592.06 minimum Payment 90.33 interest rate of 2.85%. (I consolidated at a decent time.) I was really lucky to get out of school with a Bachelor's with this little debt. I went to a private university which was fairly expensive but work picked up most the tab for it. Although some of my credit card debt related to school as well.

Now the "Stupid" Debt I've gotten myself into (AKA the credit cards):

Household Bank $515.09 with a minimum payment of $34 dollars last month. Estimating around a $20-$30 Minimum this month. It's interest rate is 18.57% This is my current target debt. I'm hoping to have it paid off by the End of March.

Chase $ 2,688.76 with a minimum payment of $99.00 with an interest rate of 29.99%. This card I count card as the very devil. I'm looking very forward to starting to kick the crap out of this card once I'm done with HB.

Discover $ 5,443.86 with a minimum of $118.00 with an interest rate of 19.99%

Visa $ 11,445.78 with a minimum of $309.00 with an interest rate of 19.99% as well.

After commited expense, I have a total of $547.38.

Currently I have $50.00 a month going to my EF, I will scale this back to $1.00 a month (to keep the account active incase I need it.) once it is up to $1000. Estimated time frame August.
And Entertainment expenses of $80.00 per month. I'm working on cutting this down. It used to be $100.00 a month.
I'm also currently adding $10.00-$20.00 a month to build up a bit of cushion in my checking account. Plus I have activiated the rounding up feature at my bank which will transfer any change to my savings. For instance if I buy gas and it comes out to $15.36, they'll transfer $.64 into savings. It helps quite a bit.

This leaves a total of $397.38 to be either snowballed to take care of any expenses that come up not on the budget. I've done pretty good and applying all of this to the snowball except in recent months with the holiday. Next month I anticipate being able to apply most if not all of it to the snowball.


Assets:

I don't usually to count the car as it is a depreciating asset. I do believe it's worth is around $6K. I debating about selling it not to long ago. I'm too close to having it paid off though.

Checking Account $151.47
Savings @ BOA $60.85 (This is my cushion account for checking)
Savings @ ING $625.53 (My EF)
ISPP $730.85
401K $37,479.07

I'm anticipating between a $400-$500 Income Tax Refund this year, as that's what I've gotten the past few years. Which will be applied to debt as well.

I also have a large change jar which I'm not actually sure how much is in it. Rough guess between $50 and $100.

I get paid tomorrow so most of these numbers will change then. So this is really just a snap shot of today.

Also I am very lucky that my parents allowed me to move back home. It's helping all of us out. My parents get to save more for retirement and I get to pay down my debt and save up for a house. I count the Cable/Internet, Gas and part of the groceries as my rent. Plus helping out around the house with some things that need to be done, like painting and such now that my parents are older it's getting harder for them to do general household maintence. I also cook 1/2 the time, to free up time for my Mother.

When I started out this time last year, my net worth was negative $3K. This year at the beginning of the year my net worth is positive $10K (Positive $8K excluding the car. I keep track of this in Quicken). Working slowly but surely to turn this boat around. Actually looking at the change there, I feel pretty good about last year, I didn't feel like I had paid down much debt but I really didn't keep good track until August but I must have done something right. I count this as real success at this point.

There I'm pretty sure that I am completely naked at this point.

[mom2hancj]

I'll be in on this but boy is it hard! We have wayyy too much debt and I so can't get my brain around how to get out of it. So maybe you all can help! I never seem to know where all our money goes. I will start with some facts and then come back and update.

Take home income $5,400

Mortgage $779 monthly includes tax and ins.
Car Insurance $221
Gas/Water
Electric
Phone and Internet
Cell Phone

Groceries $400


Car Debt $2,100
One CC $18,000 2% interest
Second CC $4,000 0% interest
Sears CC $1800 (just got this month )

Ok DH and I are sooooo bad at coming up with a budget so any help would be greatly appreciated and any plan of attack. We got a fixer upper house and will sell this house. We should make approx. $30,000 on this house. The inlaws bought the fixer upper for us and said we could live in it rent free for a year. We would like to be out of debt and be able to put down a sizeable downpayment by the end of that year....so HELP!! LMK what other info you need...I may need a whole thread to myself LOL>