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Home > Archive: October, 2018

Archive for October, 2018

Farther Behind

October 31st, 2018 at 02:51 pm

Sadly my CC floating went from -$55 to $-150. Dog food was on sale so I bought 3 bags rather than my normal 1. And I found the perfect sweater for our annual Christmas sweater contest and it was 60% off so I went ahead and bought it. Oops. Oh well. I'll catch up eventually. lol.

We ended up going out to a very fancy Italian restaurant for our anniversary. It was very fun to "play rich" for an evening.

It appears like husband will be working 12 hour days next week and probably the weekend as well. Whew. Poor guy. But that will give us all the money for black Friday shopping and most of our Christmas presents.

November has an "extra" paycheck week so I am going to use that to put towards the home CCs. I am hoping that I will be able to make my goal as long as I can get enough web design work by the end of the year.

Overtime

October 16th, 2018 at 06:16 pm

Husband had to work last weekend and it looks like he might be working this weekend too.

Stinks to goes weeks without a day off, but the money sure will be nice! We estimate he will make about $400 for each weekend he works.

He might be working our anniversary weekend as well. So rather than staying a night out we may just dress up and go out to a fancy dinner. Will have to wait and see.

Overtime money will be nice to buy some wants and for saving for Christmas. Hoping I can talk husband into using some to pay down debt as well.

I am doing well with budgeting. Only $55 more and I will not be floating anything on credit cards, I will have the cash put aside in my account to pay every expenditure as it posts. I am being faithful with YNAB and am tracking everyday.

I've started doing some of the outdoor projects that need done before winter. I was hoping for a couple months of mild weather but we jumped from 90+ straight into the 30s and 40s. Yikes! I hope it goes back up and we get a fall. I'm not ready for winter yet.

Web Design Checks

October 9th, 2018 at 02:33 pm

I received 3 web design checks this week. Allowing me to put $462 towards the biggest home credit card. That brings the total down to $7,683!

Most people suggest to pay off the smallest balance first but I would like to get both accounts under $6k so I can easily balance transfer them next year to new 0% interest cards. I am guessing it will take two more years to pay them off, but who knows. Anything can happen. Perhaps husband will get a ton of overtime allowing us to speed up the pay down.

I need to pay $962 more this year to meet my 2018 debt goal. Or $481 for the next two months. Web design has really slowed up right now, so I am a bit doubtful that I will be able to make it... Although it looks like I might have two goats sold, so if I chose to apply some of that income towards the debt I could make it work. I will just have to wait and see how the rest of the year goes.

I am having a horrible time figuring out switching husband's old 401K to his new one. They are both at Vanguard, but the old employer is going to have to write a check from vanguard back to vanguard? I don't get it. Seems stupid.

Payday

October 5th, 2018 at 01:45 pm

Today is payday!

Our mortgage should now be 115,009.55.

I went ahead and set up a $75 weekly transfer from my checking to savings for our Escrow and EF. I've never done an automatic savings transfer before so that is exciting! Before we always just tried to save what we had left. It's nice to be able make it a priority.

In my last post someone commented that maybe my husband's company matches 50% up to 10% for retirement. I wonder if they are right! Husband was told 10% but he isn't very knowledgeable about stuff like that, so he might have mis-understood. That would be awesome if that is true. He is set to contribute 3% for now, and it increases 1% every year automatically. I am hoping we will be able to raise it next year but we need to settle into the budget first.

Thanks for all the comments and advice about my husband and the budget. He definitely is not a big spender or usually a whiner about money but I think he is nervous about the new job and changes and he is just projecting. I averaged all his credit card statements and showed him that he has been spending an exact average of what fun money he will be getting and that he will be saving about $10 a week in gas with the job change. Plus he won't have to pay for so many discrepancies. He will be fine. I am okay if he wants to buy a little treat for himself to celebrate us getting insurance and a better job. We've been tight for so long, and he deserves it.

Retirement Surprise & Grumpy Husband

October 4th, 2018 at 03:42 pm

Husband's new retirement contributions started this week. We were told they give you 10% of whatever you contribute which is a really awful match. But his paycheck is showing that they matched 50% of what he put it... So who knows. lol. We will take it!

Unfortunately husband had a bit of another melt down once he saw his spending get even smaller... I've asked him to do the budget himself or handle the finances but he won't. I think he believes I am taking all his money and spending it on myself or something. So frustrating.

I have everything mapped out to the dollar so everything is accounted for. But he just can't understand how he can make $400 more a month and it's already gone without increasing our fun money. He doesn't grasp that we were living check to check and that the $400 a month was floating on credit cards, and borrowing from his car money all the time.

I have always done all the budgeting and bills so I guess he just didn't realize how tight we were. I will have to keep encouraging him to be more involved in our finances, but it's like pulling teeth. Ugh.

He is going to have to start paying union dues next week which will be another $10 a week out. But he should be receiving a $20 a week raise in the next month, so it will even out.

I'm not sure how much fun money he is wanting a week. If he would just give me a number I would just let him have it and figure out a way to cover the difference so he stops driving me crazy. I don't think he even knows or really wants more. I think he is just upset that he is working a harder job and doesn't feel like he is getting anything more from it compared to his old job. I'm sure he will settle down eventually, just one of those moods.

Spending Forecast

October 3rd, 2018 at 03:24 pm

Today I am feeling the squeeze with the budget. Which is crazy since our income increased, and I was just reassuring husband that is was fine, lol.

We have all our needs met, we are putting back money every week. We aren't struggling. But I looked at the forecast for the next several months and realized that I have already planned out all my spending for the next 7 weeks. 3 weeks for the blinds and bathroom accessories, 2 weeks for a new car battery, 2 weeks for a fun item I have been wanting.

That puts me all the way at Thanksgiving. And we were going to do a little black Friday shopping this year. So I'd like to put some sort of money back for that.

Christmas is quickly approaching. Husband and I agreed to purchase one larger item to share on black Friday as our main "present" and we will set a smaller limit for each other for gifts to open on Christmas.

Our anniversary is this month and we were wanting to go away for the weekend since we did nothing at all last year. But I don't see how we can swing it without pulling from savings which I'd rather not. Plus we aren't sure with husband's new job if he will be working weekends or not so I really can't make reservations or anything. Ugh.

I have a goat sold at the end of the month. Normally that money is put back into my animal saving fund but I may end up using it for either black Friday shopping, Christmas presents, or for our anniversary.

Otherwise I would love to figure out a way to scrounge up some extra income. I am owed about $133 from past web projects but payment is sketchy at best. They recently asked me to do another project for them and I implied that I wasn't willing to pick up any more work because they never pay me. They promised they will send it soon... Hopefully that will light the fire, but we'll see.

Home Remodel & Fencing

October 1st, 2018 at 02:13 pm

Our master suite addition is soooo close to being done. Our vanity mirror is at the welder getting fixed right now and once that comes back the bathroom will be pretty much complete. I have already taken a few baths which is so awesome.

Once the mirror is hung I will officially strike that goal from our 2018 list. Of course we still have a lot of little projects to do around the house like trim but that is always going to be a work in progress. Our bedroom and bathroom will be done and we have never had any rooms that are finished before so it is quite exciting!

My fence is also finally fixed!!! The installer ended up giving me about $470 off the price which was very nice of him. Since I had that saved back, now I have extra! I put $300 into my animal savings account since I may need to purchase a bit more hay this year. The rest I used to get all of our budget caught up. Hoping to stick with green categories from here on out.

This past month really feels like a fresh start to our life and budget. I'm hoping for exciting things in the next year!