July Recap

July was a fun month for us, we had family come up from Florida and we spent a long weekend at the beach in cute little condos and rode mopeds and ate ice cream and had some general frolicksome fun. And we go to go camping and spend more time getting sunburned at the beach.

I also found a flaw in our budgeting system. I need to look ahead at our months better and find these extra fun things we're doing and plan and save for them. We survived this month on a little bit of savings and a mid-month draw.

I hate that feeling of being at the end of your account. That "if this goes through in the next 3 days we're gonna overdraft" feeling. It's a total buzz-kill.

In other news, I also got a 0% card that I transferred half of my balance to. This will save us some finance charges that can go towards more debt. Yay for capital one and their relentless offers.

December and Year-End Recap

What a month!

I think this month is normally a big expense month for most families because of Christmas. For us, it was made even bigger because we took a trip to Utah to visit my family. However, because of our generous boss and one other Heaven-sent blessing, we were in the black by the end of the month. But that doesn't mean we were very wise this month. We were a little zealous in our gift giving. Overall a good month.

In 2010, we made a huge step in paying off our debt by starting this method of tracking our spending. We still have a very long way to go. For 2011, I want our total debt to be below $15,000 by the end of the year. In order to do that, we only need to pay our CC the way we have been, and to not put anything else on them. It's definitely achievable as long as nothing crazy and out of the ordinary happens (knock on wood).

Happy New Year!

October Recap

This month was a curve ball (as noted in our last post). We only worked about once a week. Thankfully, because of our budget we were able to stay within our means and didn't overdraw or default on any bills. And spectacularly we are back in business! The last few days of last month, our boss informed us that we have enough projects to last through the year. Plus, Tony got another job at a jewelry store in the mall - doing sales, which he loves and is so great at (I wish I had half of his skills).

Because of the skimpy month ahead (based on our hours worked last month), we didn't pay anything other than the minimum due on our credit cards. We actually even closed another credit card so that the minimum payments and interest would be lower. This also helps to prevent us from putting more on that.

When we started this 2 1/2 months ago, I had a dream to finish paying off our debt within 2 years. That was a very lofty goal considering almost all of our income would be going to bills and debt, and thus far I'm seeing that at our current status, this goal cannot be reached that soon. More like 3 years. Still a great accomplishment if we can achieve it.

It's been a great month though, still spent a little more on eating out than we should and "unnecessary expenses", etc. The great feeling of staying within our means in irreplaceable!

Recap September

So this month was our first on our budget/Debt Diet. It was exciting and interesting. I updated the budget every 2 or 3 days or so and we were able to stay within our means and pay extra on our cards this month. It was not the amount I was hoping for, but it was a lot better than the last 3 years have been.

It's amazing how old habits are hard to kill. Even though we were trying to stay within the perimeters we had set for ourselves, we overstepped what I thought was reasonable. For example, we spent $87 in "dining out" and even though we were eating extremely healthy (baja fresh), that is more than I used to "budget" for and more than we need to spend in a month on outside food.

Another thing I forgot to configure in my budget was "unexpected items" - which is hard to plan for, but I didn't even think about. Our brake pads needed to be replaced, and luckily my husband is awesome and replaced them himself (even though he'd never done it before), saving us half the cost. However, adding that to our other "unexpected costs" and "necessary/unnecessary expenses" and we were off of my projected dream payoff amount for the month.

Overall, it was a great and successful month. On to October!!