Ugh! Not Where I Was Hoping To Be!

This summer has not been easy on the budget.  We have spent way to much money with no plan on how to pay for anything!

Here is where we stand now....with approximate numbers.

The bad.....

American Express- $1250.00 - before summer we had no credit card debt.  I would love to say this is due to some big emergency but it is not.  It has been alot of eating out and buying things we don't need.

ER Fund - $1100 - I really like to have $2000 in this fund.  Again at the beginning of summer we did.  More mindless spending.  My hubby bought me an ipad for my 40th birthday with no real plan or savings on how to pay for it.  So it came out of the ER fund :(

Car repayment started at 16,000- we have paid $1650 towards the car since May.  Which leaves us at a balance of alittle less then 14,500.  We are $1350 short of what I was hoping to have been able to pay by now.

The Good....

We have paid Kid # 3's community college tuition in cash.  So that is a plus in our favor.

I have also made over $600 since April decluttering my house and selling our unwanted items.  That is also a plus!

I have paid cash to sign Kid # 5 up for school and only need to buy 2 boxes of Kleenex and some disinfecting wipes for her supplies. 

I also will not owe anything to sign Kid # 4 up for school.  His Dad and I split that cost and his Dad owes me money for some other expenses so we will just call it even.

How are we gonna get out of this mess.....

I finally bit the bullet and called and had our land line and cable disconnected.  This will save us $95 a month.

Next up we will be getting rid of one of our cars.  We own 4, two we both drive, 1 is a van used for my hubby's side business.  The other is old and we don't need it.  I will be putting a for sale sign in it this week.  I don't expect to get alot from it but mainly it just needs to go.  That will also lower our car insurance.

We will be reevaluating out car insurance to make sure we are getting the best bang for our buck.  I think we might be over paying.  We will see....

I will also be going back to work and getting a pay check again at the end of this month.   That will be nice!

August is an extra pay check month so I plan to pay at least half of the amount owed on the American Express card with the extra money from the extra pay check.  The rest of the money from the extra pay check will have to go towards some back to school expenses for Kid # 5.

I am going to cut our grocery budget to $300 a month.  There is only 3 of us eating here for the most part now.  I think with careful planning this is doable.  In order to do this I will need to go back to planning menus, which I should have been doing all along anyway! I also need to make a better effort to get back to using coupons.  I use to have a nice stockpile but have gotten away from couponing when my stockpile grew large.  We have now used that up.  I don't plan to have a large stockpile again necessarily but some extra bottles of shampoo, deodorant, tampons etc would be nice.

The biggest thing we are going to do is sit down together and work out a budget.  Paying our bills is not really the problem, it is how we spend the money that is left.  We never have a plan and we never work together on this.  We need to do better or we will never accomplish any of the goals we have.

Something I know that will be coming up....

My hubby is going back to school for his Masters, we have 2 books left to purchase for that.

Kid # 5's piano lessons will be starting again in September.  We will need to work those back in the budget.

I will need to finish our Christmas shopping and pay cash for that.  I would say we are about half done.

My car is going to need some routine work done on it since it has rolled over 100,000.  That is gonna be pricey.  We will need to save cash for that.

In January Kid # 3's tuition for the spring semester will be due again.  We will need to plan for that also.

Good list of things to talk about and plan for I think.  So lets see if we can get all this under control and make some head way.