Living Paycheck to Paycheck

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”.

Okay, maybe it’s not a windfall…it’s more like I’m an idiot.

When I created my Bare Bones Budget, I settled on $2409.97 as my monthly limit by adding two paychecks together since I’m paid every other week.  I failed to realize that there are 52 weeks in a year, and I’m paid 26 times…which becomes 13 months.

So my REAL monthly budget should be $2608.33.  I just “found” $200 a month…sort of.  I was paid three times in February and will be again in August.  This is pretty great, all in all.  I figure that I’ll still try to keep to the Bare Bones Budget, but I probably won’t cry if I fail or something (I hate failure.  The best way to get me to do ANYTHING is to make it into a competition with someone.  I’ve never lost a staring contest because I will keep my damn eyes open while tears are pouring out from the strain before I’ll let myself lose—this is not terribly good for my eyes or for curing my stubbornness, but it’s awesome for my self-esteem).

Since I already had the one paycheck, I’ll only count the August one in with my budgeting and things.  I figure that a lot of it will go to gas as I travel this summer, and some gifts from July through Christmas.  And I can use this to show my best friend that yes, I can afford to live without a roommate.  YAY!

About once a week I’m going to try to post what I’ve spent…for everything.  This is for my second week.  I’m also going to include money I’ve received.

Income:

Paycheck:  $1204.98
Revolution Money Exchange Payout: $35
VA State Tax Refund: $165
TOTAL: $1404.98

Expenses:

Gas: (Two trips):  $102.51
Tolls: I’ll post this when the $35 is automatically taken from my account.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $107.43 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $10.61 / 250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $148.14 / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $- / 70

NET EFFECT: $528.90 / 1404.98

I was able to avoid shelling out money for Mother’s Day by using a gift card I’d received at Christmas, so I was pretty happy about that.

About once a week I’m going to try to post what I’ve spent…for everything.  So, so far for May:

Student Loans: $174.01
Car Loan: $88.71
Cell Phone: $47.79
Loudoun County Car Tax: $64.39
Electric Bill: $45.85
Groceries:  $13.79 (Milk, eggs, allergy medicine)
Gas: $36.??
Tolls: I’ll post this when the $35 is automatically taken from my account.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $107.43 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $-64.39 / 250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $36.?? / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $70

My take-home pay each month is $2,409.97.  Knowing that I have not been living within my means, I decided to make a “Bare Bones Budget”.  What always screws me up when keeping a budget is budgeting per expense, instead of grouping things together.  Each month when I pay my rent, I have to pay mandatory fees and my water bill together with it.  So that always varies between $1032-37.  I could choose a number within that range, but why not add my other utilities in?  And if I’m adding necessary utilities, why don’t I add in the unnecessary ones like cell phone and internet?

So I’ve broken my budget into a few categories:

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $1345
Category 2:  Savings — $250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $70

The only problem with a bare bones budget is that it doesn’t leave room for surprises (unless you count Category 5’s “miscellaneous” option.  Already this month I paid my county car tax for $64.39…technically, that could go in either Category 4 or 5…or 2, “Savings”.  With my $250/month, I want to put $200 into the savings for paying my car loan, $25 into an “Emergency Fund” which I don’t really have yet, and another $25 into a Gift Fund.  It seems like every month, I have another gift to buy, and sometimes more than one.  In July, I have two weddings and my grandmother’s birthday.  I want to start putting money aside specifically for that.

To do that, I’m going to start splitting up my bank accounts.  I have two checking accounts, two savings accounts, and one Money Market account.  The Money Market has the most money in it and is the savings for paying off my car.  My most often used checking account will stay the same pretty much; it’ll be used for Categories 1, 3, and 4.  One savings account will be the Emergency fund, one will be the Gift fund, and the lesser used checking account will just hold whatever money is leftover at the end.

If this is too hard, I may I have to fiddle with the numbers as I go.  For example, $250 is more than 10% of my take home income, and I already have 3% of my salary before taxes going into a 401K (with 50% match), so it might be best to put more into travel as this summer approaches and gas gets higher.

In other news, this weekend my boyfriend went grocery shopping for Saturday night’s dinner so that he could cook for me.  I told him that I didn’t want him to buy food so that I could stick to the pantry diet, but apparently he disapproves and didn’t want to stick to it himself.  So he bought me a package of lunch meat and bread for this week’s lunch while he was there.  I’m so used to not having that kind of food that I cooked lunch and came to work before remembering.  That’s the best part of this diet-that’s-not-really-a-diet:  I’m finally learning how quick cooking can really be.  This gives me hope that in the future, when I’m a parent, my children won’t starve to death.