Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Thanks in large part to my tax refunds/rebate, my net worth went up a fair amount!  Yay!  You can access my page here.

Last month’s net worth: -$9,406
This month’s net worth: -$6,293

For a difference of: $3,113

Reasons for this:

Even though money is only being added to my 401K currently (about $78 each paycheck), the money in all three retirement accounts has grown a little.

Tax refunds+rebate= $2294

$100 owed to me was paid back.

$35 from Revolution Money Exchange.

Didn’t spend too much last month while budgeting.

Final Tally! 

Income (from beginning of May):

Paychecks: $2409.97
VA State Tax Refund: $165
Revolution Money Exchange Pay-Out: $35
Federal Tax Refund: $1529
Money Paid Back to Me: $100
Federal Rebate: $600

Total: 4838.97

Expenses (for this week):

Gas (three trips): $144.82
Tolls: $35.00
Entertainment: 17.65
Rent/Water/Fees: 1033.66
Groceries: $158.69 (Got a lot of June’s groceries, hair dye, and allergy medicine)
Other:  $9.00 Service Charge on my bank account…I had less than $750 in my checking at one point, I guess.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $1467.78 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $50 / 250*
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $460.26 / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $121.04 / 70

TOTAL: $2361.80 / 2409.97 from the original budget, with $48.17 going into savings (*along with “extra” tax money and things).

This also goes to $2361.80 / 2610.80 (the ACTUAL amount I have per month because of the two extra paychecks per year) for a difference of $249.00.  So this isn’t so bad, especially since my June groceries won’t be so expensive.

My savings will be allotted thusly:

$25 into Gift fund
$25 into Emergency fund
$1500 into Car Lump Sum (due NOV 2008!) account
$83.17 into Revolving Savings — this account is for when I go under or over on a given month and to fund “wants” periodically.

Other ”extra” money will stay in my checking for now.  My car insurance lump sum will be coming up this summer and I can’t even guess how much it will be.

Also:  Anyone closely following the blog might note that I’ve switched things from different categories and removed some expenses (like the Target bill payment).  I switched the Loudoun car tax to Misc., and I removed the bill payment because the point of this was to show what I spent vs. earned in May, not what I’m paying for now because of April or March.

I’m glad that I did this, but in the future I might just put down my Bare Bones Budget categories instead, since this turned into a lot of searching online for my online banking totals and credit card “recent activities”.

It’s here!  I received an e-mail from my bank this morning saying that I’d received a direct deposit and I opened it to find that I got my paycheck (which I was expecting) and the $600 rebate (which I wasn’t).

Now, I think that the economic stimulus package was foolish, personally.  It’s not going to make a big impact on the economy.  The rising prices of food and other things are probably going to eat up a bulk of that money and I can’t see it do more than slow down the fall of the economy.  I also don’t agree with only giving the rebate to those who fall into certain monetary categories.  It’s a roundabout way of taking money from the rich to give to the poor.

We’re supposed to be a society that encourages its citizens to strive to be the best; we say that working hard will lead to success.  How are Americans supposed to believe that?  Right now, we are penalized for our hard work and success.  We work hard to get raises only to find ourselves in a higher tax bracket and bringing home less money (until we get more raises and the same thing happens again).  Many Americans recently found out that they made too much money last year to qualify for the stimulus check–which means that THEIR money is going us, the ones receiving this money.

Now, don’t get me wrong–I think that getting $600 in my account today was pretty rad; however, I would much rather have gone without it than let my country sink deeper into socialism.

I finished my taxes last night, which makes me feel like I am slightly less of a slacker than the ones who wait until today to start.  My federal return was set to be about $1379, until I took advantage of being able to put money into a traditional IRA.  Since money is rather tight right now, I couldn’t afford to put in much, so I put $1000 into Vanguard’s Star Fund.  I didn’t research funds or anything, but that was the only fund with such a low buy-in.  If it turns out that I don’t like it, later I will roll it over into a different fund.  Now my return will be about $1529 (?), not including the $165 from Virginia and the $600 rebate that I’ll get later.

When talking about contributing to retirement when one is young, I hate when others say that “you can’t afford not to!”  Sure.  I realize the impact of compounding interest and all, but sometimes a person really has no money to spare unless he or she wants to go into more debt.  I would love to be putting tons of money into an IRA right now, but I can barely swing this.  I’m taking my total (state+federal) return from about $1486 to $691.  I’m happy that I was able to put something in, though, especially with the economy the way it currently is.  As my dad says, the economy will eventually make a large push back, rocketing the values of current holdings.