Budgets!

I'm not gonna lie.  I LOVE budgets.  I love figuring them out, I LOVE living by one.  It actually makes me a little giddy!  (The Mr also calls me a nerd).  I can thank my parents for this.  Ever since we were little my parents made us "budget" our earnings.  50% went into savings, 10% went to the church, and 40% went to whatever we wanted.  Then I took it to a whole different level.  I split my 40% up into an envelope system.  I was talking to my mom last night about our budget, and I made the comment that for me not being very detail oriented, by budget is very detail oriented.  She told me that I've always been detail oriented when it comes to my money.  HA!

I have FINALLY finished ours for 2013.  I used a general excel spreadsheet that one of my good friends gave me, that she got from a Dave Ramsey financial counsellor...and then I tweaked the format--a lot :)  I have it all worked out. Down. To. The. Penny.  Then I have it all color coordinated for bills that are Auto-Withdrawn from our checking account, Cash categories, Expenses that we don't have every month, but we still have to budget for (Dr appts, Contacts, Gifts, etc), and Savings!  Then I have my Savings categories linked to another sheet, where I have it formulated to add it all up for me! 

We were on a way different budget the past 8 months.  It was called "Getting out of Debt".  My Husband bought a 4-wheeler before we met, and he had no plans to get married.  I also had some school bills, and some credit card debt.  So we had our little emergency fund set aside, got our living expenses paid for, and everything else basically went towards debt.   

Credit cards....Oh how I have a love/hate relationship with them! It's so much fun to go out and swipe that card & buy that new outfit, complete with shoes, jewelry, lipstick, and a purse to match. Then the credit card statement comes in, and you only have to pay a minimum of $25.00....Then you max that credit card out...opps! Then the interest piles up, and folks, 20% interest adds up quick. Then you start playing the balance transfer game. You know, open another credit card with 0% APR on balance transfers for x amount of months...Yup, Been there. Done that. NEVER. AGAIN. My parents raised me to know better, but sometimes I just have to learn the hard way, and now we are paying for it!

We thankfully will be completely DEBT FREE by January 1, 2013!  YAY!  I have the most gracious in-laws, EVER.  They are letting us live in their "little house", rent free, until we can save up enough money to buy a house.  This has  allowed us to completely pay off our debt, and will allow us to put away a hefty amount into savings for a house!  I would LOVE to have my own house.  Some days I get REALLY impatient, (on those days were the dishes are piled up because we don't have a dishwasher... a dishwasher is a requirement in our future home!)  Those are the days that I pull out the website where you can create an amortization schedule.  You put in how much your Mortgage will be after your down payment, whether it's a 15 or 30 year mortgage, and after you scroll all they way down through all your payments, it shows you how much interest you will have paid at the end.  It gets me every time!  As much as I would love to not have a mortgage, I also realize that it probably won't happen that way, especially when the babies start to arrive!  But the longer we can hold out the less interest we will have to pay. 

I started off our budget with tithing.  Not gonna lie, that hurt a little bit!  But if we weren't giving enough that it hurts, then is it really giving sacrificially?  Then I added in all of our living expenses.  Gas, Groceries, Electric, Cell phone, etc. 

Then I got to figure in the rest.  I  have a budget fund for my husband's work boots.  When you are looking to spend $200-$250 on a pair of boots, 2 times a year, you better have a budget for it!  We have a new car fund.  Both of our vehicles are in good condition.  But eventually one of them will go out, might as well start saving ahead now!  You name it, I probably have a category for it: clothes, eating out, gifts, vacation, dog's, emergency fund.  What's an emergency fund you ask?  Well, according to Dave Ramsey, everyone needs an emergency fund.  At first you start off with it being $1000.00, this is when you are paying off debt.  Then you begin growing your emergency fund, up to 6 months living expenses.  This is for  those "rainy days".  The unexpected days.  The A/C goes out, the car gets totaled, you lose your job.  This way, you'll have something to fall back on instead of having to rely on a credit card.  Then, you work on building your rainy day fund back up again!  We have a spending category, for both my Husband and I.  He has an Old Ford pick up that He's trying to fix up.  I want a new camera & some better lenses.  If you don't budget in spending, the spending isn't going to stop, you just end up pulling it form somewhere else!  Then there is the miscellaneous.  Because Life happens.

When we have an excess in a category, like Electric.  In the winter our electric bill is lower, in the summer it's higher.  My "excess" goes into my alternate account, up to x amount of dollars.  So in the summer when it's higher, I can pull from my over-flow, and not wreak havoc on my budget!  When my surplus gets over a certain amount, then the extra goes into our house fund. 

When it got to the end, things got a little tricky.  I still had categories we needed to budget for, but I didn't want to give up spending money, or date night money to cover it!  Oh well!  I guess that is what being a grown up is all about!  I had to put less towards clothes so that we could have dental covered.  I made my spending money less so that we could have a little extra for date nights.  I figure that our relationship is more worth more than anything I want to buy!  If nothing else marriage & budgets have shown me how selfish I really am! 

Now here's the kicker.  I have to hand over the budget to the Mr.  A budget is never going to work unless he agrees with it!  Dave Ramsey says that when the "saver" makes the budget, they need to slide it across the table and let the "spender" make changes.  Then the compromise begins.  He's looked it over before, but I think he's scared to make any changes because He knows how hard I've worked on it!  I already know what he's going to say when he sees the Eniva fund...AKA our Vitamins :)  HA!  I just have to convince him that the money we spend in vitamins keeps us out of the Dr's office :)