new job = new budget

[lisettelovebug]

Dh has a new job making a little less (no OT). He started today. I figure he will bring home about $500 a week. So now I had to rework the budget. He will still be getting an extra $300 a week until old comp calls him. Until then we will be putting that extra onto credit cards and into building back up savings. We had to use $365 from savings for our books - but at least that's better than putting them on credit card. Income tax will be used to pay off cc's and hospital bills.
If anyone has any ideas on how to improve budget, please feel free to share.

for now our budget looks like this.
Income: $3200

3200
cc's: 200 min 3000
car loan: 240 2760
car insurance: 105 2655
rent: 525 2130
water: 33 2097
electric: 75 2022
nat. gas: 100 1922
tv/internet: 55 1867
cell phones: 73 1794
hosp bills: 232 1562
life insurance 7 1555
kids nyschp 18 1537

EF fund: 100 1437
ING savings 164 1273

household 50 1223
food 300 923
misc 40 883
eating out 40 843

laptop payment 30 813
(this is new so I forgot about it)

If this is right, then we should have an extra $800 a month to pay stuff off with. It doesn't sound right so I'm going to double check mynumbers.

[FrugalMomof3]

Doing the calculations yes there will be $800+ leftover BUT what is going to happen when that extra $300 a week is no longer there? Is this going to be around for a while or ??

Maybe it's best to put $400 extra every month the the EF or more if possible just in case. JMHO.

[sunray16]

I agree, what will happen once that extra $300 is no longer coming in? If you're worried about, I would put some away for a rainy day.

But on the other hand, even if you lose the extra $300, you still have $500 you can put toward your debt.

A few questions:
1. How much total debt do you have? CCs, car, laptop, etc.
2. Do you have your $1,000 baby EF saved up?
3. Is there anything you could cut back on? Cable, internet, cell phone, etc?

[lisettelovebug]

I agree, what will happen once that extra $300 is no longer coming in? If you're worried about, I would put some away for a rainy day. We don't know how long we'll get it so I'm really not depending on it. I wasn't going to do anything with the extra money until the end of the month ... I'm really thinking that I will put it all in savings. I have another budget that will go into effect once we no longer get that money.

But on the other hand, even if you lose the extra $300, you still have $500 you can put toward your debt.

A few questions:
1. How much total debt do you have? CCs, car, laptop, etc.
car = owe about $9000, capital one = $300, capital plus = $1600 (3% apr til march), juniper for me = 1500, juniper for dh = 450, orchard = 150, jcp =$180, laptop = 650, some other little ones that we used for xmas to get discounts like macy's with $15, bon ton = 45, best buy = 45... these will be paid off this month. I also owe on a federal loan = 16,500 but that will be deferred because of going to school. Not including school loan and car we owe about $4830.
2. Do you have your $1,000 baby EF saved up? No,we don't have as much in savings. I used $200 for xmas and then we just used $365 for school books. We have $150 in our bank's savings acct, $76 in cap one savings and 121 in ING.
3. Is there anything you could cut back on? Cable, internet, cell phone, etc?

Cable - we currently get 13 channels for $10 and internet is 45. We have to have a faster speed connection because of classes and the fact that we don't have a home phone. Me and dh share 400 minutes (we mostly call each other or call ppl on weekends so we've never went over) for cell phone which is $73 a month.

[sunray16]

Well, the first thing I would do is save up enough to replenish your emergency fund to $1,000. Then, I would start attacking those debts like it's no tomorrow (which includes not incurring anymore debt). You'll need to keep that emergency fund for EMERGENCIES though. If you're going to have expenses like school books and Christmas, start saving a little each paycheck for those expenses. As Dave would say..."Christmas is not an emergency".

I think you can do it though. If you add in the car and the student loan, you're looking at about $30,330.00 in total debt right now. I would definitely get intense about this and use that extra money to your advantage while you can.

Have you thought about selling the car? How much is it worth? Is there anything else you could cut a little on? Or maybe have a garage sale?

It's definitely doable. Good luck to you!