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My Plan

May 16th, 2006 at 06:00 pm

Wow! Thanks to all of you who responded (and read) my first note. I didn't expect so many people to stop by so soon, but boy am I glad!

I've tried to put on paper a budget allowing for $1,026 income. I decided not to go through the motion of figuring withholdings, well, mainly because it was just gonna take too much time and second, I'm not able to scale back to a "zero based" budget with that gross income anyway. So my first step is just to balance the monthly budget!

I do want to start giving $102 to church each month, that being 10%. Maybe I'll round it down to $100... we're already giving $80 a month, so that shouldn't be difficult to start. Then I am allowing $755 for the house payment, which I HOPE will end soon, and that leaves $169 for utilities. I think I can do it, at least for the spring/summer months. Last month's utilities were: electricity, $50.11; natural gas, $69.87; water, $46.10; total of $166.08. Okay, so BARELY.

I have a little income from my boarding & grooming, so I'll cover gas for the auto & groceries with that.

With the "leftover" income from the real check, for now I will be focusing on getting out of debt. We have some medical bills and a couple of credit cards, so I hope to put everything toward those.

We've already cut back about as far as we can go, cutting out DirecTV, phone, and eating out, so there's not much more we can do there.

I haven't yet figured out the $20 challenge, so I need to do a little more surfing and get details on that.

I'm off to listen to Dave Ramsey now...

Paula

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “My Plan”

  1. debtfreeme Says:
    May 16th, 2006 at 07:19 pm 1147807190
    1147807190

    just a little calculator i love to use when trying to figure out rough estimates for the with holding (a hold over from when i did payroll.)

    i love this site and this calculator: http://www.paycheckcity.com/coadp/netpaycalculator.asp

    maybe it will work well for you too!

  2. PRICEPLUS Says:
    May 17th, 2006 at 04:17 am 1147839463
    1147839463

    You'd be surprised how you can find little things here and there to cut. Heck, some of the frugal recipes here have saved me money already. I am using a bike to get around for small errands now. I am saving on gas big time with that. You'd be surprised how you can squeeze money out of the budget. As I said, this site has a ton of info.

    I see that you tithe. Good for you!

  3. Champion Cheapskate Says:
    May 19th, 2006 at 01:02 pm 1148043742
    1148043742

    You have a plan and seem to be sticking to it. That is a good start. Keep looking for creative ways to stay in control of your budget. Good luck Smile

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