Sunday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family. My dad and his fiancée reiterated how proud they were of us for having our financial act together, for being able to survive on one income. They also told us again, for the third or fourth time, that if we ever need help that we can come to them. They’ll help us out however they can and we need them to. My dad and his fiancée are just great people. Very generous. >We are so lucky to have them.
After brunch Chuck and my dad’s fiancée were up in the kitchen while the rest of us were down in the family room. While chatting, my dad’s fiancée told Chuck that she has $5000 that Chuck can use for tuition if he wants. And we can “pay it back whenever we can…or not at all.” What a generous offer! We have no plans to take her up on that – I don’t like borrowing money from family – but it’s very nice to know that it’s there as a back-up if we need it. Would you rather take out a student loan or would you rather borrow money, interest free, from family? Of course for us, best case is we save Chuck’s unemployment benefits and any money from a part time job he’s able to find and we use that to pay for tuition. No loans required hopefully.
We need to start work on Chuck’s resume as we will be job hunting for another part time position (nights and weekends). And Chuck needs to start looking into some schools too. It’s the time right now to register for next semester if there are any general classes he needs to take. And he needs to start thinking about getting into a program for next fall. There’s still much to think through. Anyone know of any good resume websites? Free?
November Budget Report
November is officially in the books. We came out $5.32 ahead for the month. Usually I transfer any "extra" to the emergency fund but that small amount I think I'll just keep in the checking account. Here are the nitty gritty details of how we did:
It's a good thing Chuck was able to bring home a bit more than I had budgeted so even though we went over our budgets in gas, groceries (Thanksgiving prep) and restaurants, we were able to stay in the black. We won't have that luxury any more. My paychecks vary by maybe a penny (salaried) so we're going to have to actually stick to our budget from now on!
Speaking of future budgets you can see I've included projected budgets for December, January and February above too. December will see a decrease in our income as Chuck will only be paid for one week of work instead of four. That amount is very close to the 10% pay cut from my paycheck so December and February are similar budget-wise. January is a bit higher because it's a three paycheck month for me but one of those is only half a paycheck due to the one week furlough I'm taking in early January. I'm still planning on saving most of my "extra half" paycheck that month though. So I guess here starts our adventure of being a one paycheck family. Time to tighten things up.
It's a good thing Chuck was able to bring home a bit more than I had budgeted so even though we went over our budgets in gas, groceries (Thanksgiving prep) and restaurants, we were able to stay in the black. We won't have that luxury any more. My paychecks vary by maybe a penny (salaried) so we're going to have to actually stick to our budget from now on!
Speaking of future budgets you can see I've included projected budgets for December, January and February above too. December will see a decrease in our income as Chuck will only be paid for one week of work instead of four. That amount is very close to the 10% pay cut from my paycheck so December and February are similar budget-wise. January is a bit higher because it's a three paycheck month for me but one of those is only half a paycheck due to the one week furlough I'm taking in early January. I'm still planning on saving most of my "extra half" paycheck that month though. So I guess here starts our adventure of being a one paycheck family. Time to tighten things up.
A Small, Free Gift for Me
I have $20 in Amazon gift certificates thanks to Swagbucks. Tonight I used $5 of them on a little splurge for me. Through tomorrow (12/1/09) Amazon has a bunch of magazine subscriptions for $5 for a 12 month subscription. Real Simple was one of them and I've wanted that magazine for a long time. I currently don't subscribe to any magazines. So I decided it was time to splurge! I'm excited to receive my first issue!
November 2009 Month End
Time for another report. This one's not quite as rosy as the last several months have been. I'll have to get used to that I think.
Debts:
Truck Loan: $30,803.50 (- $440.05) - Two payments down, only 70 to go! With the 0% interest, we'll keep making the minimum payments due on this loan.
Savings:
Emergency Fund: $5,261.54 (-178.99) - This is the first month in a very long time that we've had to draw from our emergency fund. This was to help pay for the car maintenance bill. The rest of the almost $800 bill came from our regular budget.
Short Term Savings: $283.88 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month. Not much else going on. Chuck and I are going to sit down and make a list of wants and prioritize them so we can use this money to splurge every once in a while. Our new budget will make splurging a rare event.
Travel Fund: $223.76 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month too. This account will not see any increases for a while now. With the new budget, there's no extra for this account. I guess we won't be traveling for a while!
Christmas Savings: $766.73 (+82.84) - This would have been $100 increase but I purchased a Christmas gift for our church's adopt-a-family program. No more will be put into this account. I"ll show you our new Christmas budget in the next couple days. It's at $650 right now and we'll keep the remaining in this savings account for next year.
Basement Finishing Fund: $400.81 (+0) - I zeroed out the contribution for this month to pay for the car maintenance bill. This will stay at zero for a while too. Like the travel fund there is no room in the new budget to put money here. If we're able to save money anywhere, it will go into the emergency fund first. The goal is still to build that to $20k before anything else. It's going to be slow going for a while.
And there you have it. Our November. December will be a challenge. We'll use Chuck's last paycheck (for one week of work) to give us a little cushion until my paychecks with the 10% pay restored start arriving in January. His unemployment money will go into a newly created savings account though so we can use that for tuition, job searches or an emergency if needed.
Debts:
Truck Loan: $30,803.50 (- $440.05) - Two payments down, only 70 to go! With the 0% interest, we'll keep making the minimum payments due on this loan.
Savings:
Emergency Fund: $5,261.54 (-178.99) - This is the first month in a very long time that we've had to draw from our emergency fund. This was to help pay for the car maintenance bill. The rest of the almost $800 bill came from our regular budget.
Short Term Savings: $283.88 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month. Not much else going on. Chuck and I are going to sit down and make a list of wants and prioritize them so we can use this money to splurge every once in a while. Our new budget will make splurging a rare event.
Travel Fund: $223.76 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month too. This account will not see any increases for a while now. With the new budget, there's no extra for this account. I guess we won't be traveling for a while!
Christmas Savings: $766.73 (+82.84) - This would have been $100 increase but I purchased a Christmas gift for our church's adopt-a-family program. No more will be put into this account. I"ll show you our new Christmas budget in the next couple days. It's at $650 right now and we'll keep the remaining in this savings account for next year.
Basement Finishing Fund: $400.81 (+0) - I zeroed out the contribution for this month to pay for the car maintenance bill. This will stay at zero for a while too. Like the travel fund there is no room in the new budget to put money here. If we're able to save money anywhere, it will go into the emergency fund first. The goal is still to build that to $20k before anything else. It's going to be slow going for a while.
And there you have it. Our November. December will be a challenge. We'll use Chuck's last paycheck (for one week of work) to give us a little cushion until my paychecks with the 10% pay restored start arriving in January. His unemployment money will go into a newly created savings account though so we can use that for tuition, job searches or an emergency if needed.
Credit Scores and how they're affected
If you want to know how things like late payments and bankruptcies can affect your credit score than check out this article at Yahoo Finance today. Complete with a chart and everything! It's enough to make this geeky engineer swoon!
Big picture? Don't max out your credit cards. Don't make late payments. Don't settle debt for less than you owe. Don't foreclose on your property. Don't declare bankruptcy. These are all things we strive not to do. Now, if we do mess up we know approximately how much it will affect us.
Maybe a bit more motivation to keep our financial noses clean?
Big picture? Don't max out your credit cards. Don't make late payments. Don't settle debt for less than you owe. Don't foreclose on your property. Don't declare bankruptcy. These are all things we strive not to do. Now, if we do mess up we know approximately how much it will affect us.
Maybe a bit more motivation to keep our financial noses clean?
Christmas Budget Mini Update
Yesterday I received a $100 check for our family Christmas. This is our gift from my grandmother. I think we’ll split it $25 for Anya, $25 for Jamison and $50 for Chuck and I.
I’m still working on our revised Christmas budget. I had dropped Anya and Jamison from $100 each to $75 each. We can use this money from Grandma to pad their gifts a little bit. I had dropped Chuck and I from $75 each to $25. This would bring us back up a little bit. The rest of the budget is still up in the air.
After we talk with our families at Thanksgiving this weekend we’ll figure out if we’re exchanging gifts at all and if we are, what our limits are for each other. From there I can re-do our budget and see if we can keep it under $750 total. At the end of this month we’ll have roughly $740 in savings plus this $100 for a total of $850. Our initial budget was over $1000. It will be our goal to have it less than $750 and even less than that if we can. We don’t want to spend everything in the Christmas savings if we don’t have to. That will be our start for next year when things are going to be tight.
I’m still working on our revised Christmas budget. I had dropped Anya and Jamison from $100 each to $75 each. We can use this money from Grandma to pad their gifts a little bit. I had dropped Chuck and I from $75 each to $25. This would bring us back up a little bit. The rest of the budget is still up in the air.
After we talk with our families at Thanksgiving this weekend we’ll figure out if we’re exchanging gifts at all and if we are, what our limits are for each other. From there I can re-do our budget and see if we can keep it under $750 total. At the end of this month we’ll have roughly $740 in savings plus this $100 for a total of $850. Our initial budget was over $1000. It will be our goal to have it less than $750 and even less than that if we can. We don’t want to spend everything in the Christmas savings if we don’t have to. That will be our start for next year when things are going to be tight.
Heading West
I’m officially booked for a trip to Seattle for work in early December. Remember my need for a work issued credit card? Well, I found out last week that my company is ending its corporate card agreement with American Express. All cards will be canceled on December 15th. A new corporate agreement with Citibank Corporate MasterCard has been reached and anyone needing a corporate card will need to apply for a new one. My trip is planned from December 6th – 10th so for me it’s actually pretty good timing. I’ll let them cancel my American Express and I don’t plan on applying for the new one. This is my second business trip in the eleven years I’ve worked at this company. I don’t foresee many trips in the future. If I do have to travel in the future, then I’ll apply for the new MasterCard.
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