Month 2 Revisited

OK, February is over.  I thought a short month would be easier.  In some ways, it was.  We did not have to borrow money from the Savings to cover the Checking, so that's a good thing!  But by the end of the month, I was kind of holding my breath and hoping that paycheck would hit.

I looked over the statement for February and I think I've found our problem.  See, I try to do everything in cash now.  I've set it up so that all groceries and other similar transactions come out of nice little labelled envelopes that are filled on payday.  Every 2 weeks we get paid, and every 2 weeks I load those kiddos up in the car and make an ATM run.  I pull out all the money I need for my envelopes for those 2 weeks.  This is what we did last time we set up a budget, and it works super well if you stick to it....  Unfortunately, we don't seem to have that down again this time...

Let's think about this.  Every month we get 2 paychecks, I make 2 ATM withdrawals, then there's bills that are paid either through automatic deduction or check, let's say that adds up to 10 (I'm being generous here because I'm too lazy to go back and count and I want to give us the benefit of the doubt here).  We also use our debit cards for gas (it's just easier to pay at the pump than go in with cash).  That's about 6 transactions.  That's 20 transactions that should occur in our checking account each month.  Let's be REALLY generous and go up to 25, just in case I'm forgetting something.  25.  How many transactions did our checking account see in February (a short month, remember)?

49.

Basically double what it should have.  Wow.  Talk about sucking!  No wonder we never have extra money to pay down debts!  No wonder we're always just squeaking by from paycheck to paycheck!  We clearly don't understand this self-imposed "no debit card use" rule at all!  WHY???

Because life happens.  I'm looking over it and there is not a single payment to Taco Bell or any of the fun stuff we used to waste money on.  There's a payment to the dentist.  There's insurance on Hubby's new iPhone.  And so on and so forth.  Most of it is stuff that we just never even thought about and didn't have the cash set aside for.  Or trips to the grocery store that were not planned and we didn't have the cash on us (we don't exactly carry around all of our cash all the time- we're weird but we're not crazy!).  Of course there are a couple of instances of lack of communication between Hubby and myself.  Like car washes.  I noticed a few payments to the car wash on that list.  Well, if you look at my car you know that I do not take any pride in it.  It gets me from point A to point B and I do not care how it looks, so I'll go a year without a car wash.  Maybe if it gets really bad I'll hose it down, but that's about the extent of it (yeah, I know the benefits to washing your car, I know that it's going to rust together or rust apart or whatever and I would save a lot of time and money in the long run if I gave it regular washings, I just really don't care).  But Hubby is another story.  He likes a clean car.  He takes car maintenance seriously on his baby.  I understand this and I actually have an envelope set aside for the specific purpose of maintaining his car.  But he clearly does not know this, because the envelope has cash in it that goes untouched while my checking account has 3 car washes plus an oil change on it.  Obviously this budgeting thing is not something I should be doing alone, but should be a family affair.  Then maybe we would all be on the same page as far as how car washes should be purchased.

We had our taxes done last night.  Due to our new home purchase, we had to file a paper return which means a few extra weeks of waiting for the big payout, but I'm actually OK with that.  I remember a time when that little refund was the difference between bills getting paid or not.  We're very lucky to not be in that place anymore.  Sure, refund time is fun, but it's not necessary to our survival anymore.  I cannot wait to get it though because budgeting it will actually be a lot of fun.  I'm hoping to sit down later today and see where exactly we can put it.  I'm thinking something like this:  10% to charity (I actually have a lot of fun trying to decide which worthy organization should get this money-- though really I know if I have it my way I'll give it all to our local PBS station, no contest), 10% for totally selfish purposes (we already have picked out our big splurges, Hubby and I each get our own, no joint purchases this time around!), and the rest for paying things off and saving.  You know what?  I just might buy that $30 water saving shower head too!  That's right, Big Spender in the house today (or in 5 to 7 weeks when we get our refund, I should say).

My March resolution is to provide a better blog.  I can't guarantee it will be a daily occurrence, but that's what I'm going to shoot for.  So check back regularly, as I'm sure to have tons of fun and excitement to share with you.  Until then, happy budgeting!