Monday, November 15, 2010

Well, there’s your problem

The past 60 days, financially, have been challenging.

(just so you know we are mostly working with a Dave Ramsey plan, with a few modifcations because we are incapable of doing exactly as anyone tells us)

My car repairs.

A weekend away

DH’s truck repairs

My illness. Not that bronchitis is a spendy sort of illness but the fatigue leads to dinner out, take out & poorly planned shopping trips costing more than budgeted.

Plus the coming costs we have yet to absorb.

Kids uninsured dental appointments & possible orthodontia appt

Xmas shopping

Thanksgiving with family in FL & the trip costs (several dinners out & two hotel rooms)

So DH & I sat down with the budget spreadsheet and had a come to Jesus meeting. (which is much funnier if you know I’m a Wiccan and DH is agnostic)

We went over, line by line, everything on the bank statements, added up all the categories & sorted by costs(man that is a lot of money on dinner out & OMG Amazon!), discussed where to cut back to make up for the shortfall (dinner out & Amazon), what to transfer to pay what amount, how to stop us both from spending the same $100, etc.

Despite ending up over budget the past two months, we are actually doing fairly well with budgeting. See, we stuck with it for 6 months and it was 3 large expenses (2 unexpected) that threw us off. Usually we only manage 3-4 months and then a slew of minor crap from poor planning (dinner out) derails us.

Yes, we blew it.

But!

We made it 6 months before blowing it this time!

We should celebrate!

With dinner out!