So my husband has been "hired" for three different jobs but none of them have a firm start dates yet. Ahh the joys.

So while he is waiting for something to happen, he is working on the kitchen. We removed the tile backsplash this weekend so he needs to sand everywhere, patch, prime and paint. I figure it will take him all week though he seems to think he can get all of the first run of sanding done today. I think we still have another month before the cabinet refacing so we have the time to get everything done.

I have updated our ticker to reflect the cost of everything. From now on it should only go up though it will be a couple of months before there is any dramatic changes (need husband to be fully employed before we can make any huge dents).

I still remember my father telling me that as long as you don't have more debt than your yearly income, you are doing well. (And you wondered where I learned to pay for things on credit instead of with savings...) I am glad to say we are no where near that level even with my husband being unemployed. The best part is that once he is employed, it will only take a year to clean up the mess and be done with it. I am really looking forward to building our savings back up again.

Oh and for those keeping track, we have spent about $25k on the house repairs and furnishings in four months. $13k of that is for the cabinet refinishing and brand new casement windows so still up and coming expenses.

Hmmm...was rather afraid this might happen. DH's job has delayed his start date by an entire month. Nothing like getting your potential hires to stop looking for another job and then put them on hold. The excuse is a lack of people to train because they are too busy.

So the resume's are going back out and a couple of temp agencies are looking for work for him. Gambling on this company a second time would be a fool's choice in this economy.

Poor DH feels guilty because he stopped accepting interviews (he had 4 additional offers) when he accepted this job and then they wait till the week before he starts to let him know they have delayed by a month. Doesn't bode well for the type of work environment, maybe he should take this as a warning and run for the hills.

Ah well so I have adjusted the cashflow (lowered debt payoff) so that it doesn't stop us in our tracks. Unfortunately, that is another month of income lost at minimum. Not the most ideal time but c'est la vie, when does life ever happen at the ideal time.

My only concern is that if my job gets cut at the same time he is still looking. As long as one of us is employed, we are safe but none is not going to cut it. At least everyone seems to think I am indispensable at work. Not that that matters if the company goes under but barring that I should be good.

May 2010 is a realistic date for being credit card debt free. As of April, we will have racked back up to 20k (paying no interest but still). *Sigh*

I am glad we have the house, but all the repairs will have set us back a whole year. It doesn't help that everyone is running deals right now in order to get business or that I have no patience.

The only remaining projects in the house are the roof and the furnace. Everything else (and I do mean everything that isn't a gut and rebuild) has been dealt with now. The roof and the furnace both should last at least 4 more years but I will be keeping an eye on them.

I want to get to the point where we are saving up the money and then spending it instead of doing the 0% deals but I suppose I will at least celebrate the victory of not having paid interest on debt in the past year or even in the future year.

At least I don't spend as frivolously as in the past.

That said, here are my goals. I want to get credit card debt free, I want to be maxing out our retirement accounts (at least this has been improving over time), I want to save at least 10% in our emergency fund/long term savings and I want to save 10% for our short term savings (vacations, things or projects that come up, etc).

I think I have a much better chance of reaching these goals from this point forward because I finally have a handle on the splurge money and the house repairs (both of which kept us running over, though to be fair, the house was the biggest issue). That May 2010 date will be reached with full employment and full splurge and house repair levels so it seems highly likely though not guaranteed.

For the EF, I am thinking a year of expenses keeping in mind the potential for needing to fix things should be good but I will have to mull that over. That would be ~41k. So probably 2 years to build that but probably 4 instead so that we can max the retirement at the same time. Definitely something I will be replanning when the debt is gone.

and he hasn't even left the old place (gave 2 week notice on Monday). He has about 2 weeks he will have off between jobs so that will be nice.

I guess I was right not to go into complete lock down when he put his notice in, this won't even slow down our income thanks to vacation time he has accumulated.

So same budget, little extra money. Very nice.

Paid off the credit card that bought our couch today. Its so weird to be back to paying multiple cards off. It was 0% interest but was small so worth paying off to avoid the hassle.

Technically we have 4 cards with balances now, none of them charging interest, but 2 are about to become 1 and the other 2 are going to be paid off as soon as possible (depends on when hubby gets a job).

Fortunately, DH has accumulated an additional 110 hours of pto so at his current hour rate, almost a month of pay.

This means that even if he doesn't get a job immediately, the debt won't be increasing and will keep going down despite living on one income. Something very comforting about that.

We are still moving ahead with all of the repairs we have scheduled, its just easier to get them done now and we aren't in any danger of being unable to pay for things.

I have to say, I am very grateful that we have always kept expenses down. We may have overdone the splurging in the past but we never locked ourselves into a position we couldn't get out of.

Oh and an update on my frugal month. We have done very well. The 25th of this month is when it ends and we still have $50 of food money, 1/3 of our gas money and due to a weird billing choice, $70 left of utility money. This means we spent less than half of what we spent last month on food and we even did the same for spending on the house.

Since I am a big fan of gradual reductions since otherwise I freak out and overindulge, I am extremely pleased at how easy it was to cut back down. I still need to cut some more, but baby steps work best for me and that was one heck of a baby step.

My DH turned in his 2 week notice so hopefully no more nightmares and our stress level should go down. This also means (since he doesn't have a firm job offer in hand) that I am switching to cash preservation until he has a new job.

I am actually going to do it in two stages. He has 3 potential contract jobs through headhunters starting March 1 so until that date passes with no job in hand, I will keep contributing to my Roth IRA. If none of those pan out, I will turn the contributions off and switch to a full bare bones budget to keep the debt at a minimum. At that level, we can last indefinitely which is handy in today's economy.

Now you all know why I wanted a cheap mortgage :P

He has a job interview this Wednesday and another one will be probably be scheduled for this week as well (another reason its easier to quit now, employer's get cranky when you start needing multiple days off at the last minute).

I am actually surprised at the number of job openings in his field. You would think that with all the layoffs in the mortgage industry there wouldn't be so many new openings.

I will keep you updated as things occur but I will probably be a bit quieter than usual till I know where we are finally at.

Finally got my first full water and sewer bill. It was $25 for 60 days. Come to find out our average gallon per day per person was 33 gallons. Not bad. I agree with their assessment though that water usage goes up in the summer. Even though we plan to plant low water plants, we still have to water for the initial planting and we will wash the car at home once its warm enough that I can't justify the car wash.

However I consider this excellent news because I was budgeting $100 for 60 days. Obviously their set up fees are far more expensive than their water fees since my first (partial) bill was $50.

DH is starting to sound like I did the week before I quit my job (3 years ago, not a recent thing). I keep crunching the numbers to see how I can keep the damage to a minimum. Hopefully Tuesday brings good news on the job interview he had.

Its complicated because on one hand, if I know this is going to be a long term unemployment, I would stop all the retirement savings and drop to minimum payments on the debt. On the other hand, since I don't know, I am still keeping those up.

The debt repayment isn't really a big deal since I can always run the debt back up if I had to in a worse case scenario. Retirement savings are a bigger deal since they can't be accessed once paid out. This right here is why I eventually want to have an EF that covers a year of salary. Unfortunately, we haven't reached that point yet.

Without adjusting the budget, I can make it out til June 1st. But if I adjusted the budget immediately, we could make it another 3 months. Grrr, so hard to predict.

Course, the reality is that we could technically go indefinitely without his income, we just would have no retirement savings, no debt repayment (just minimums) and no fun. But I really shouldn't be complaining because at least we could survive. There is a lot of people who can't. Doesn't make this situation any less stressful though...

Budget

Savings $75
Roth IRA $300 (raised from $200)
Student Loan $194
Car Insurance $65
CC#1 $100
CC#2 $1000
Electric/gas $150
PITI $1288
TV/Internet $86
Gas $100
Food $600 (all together and far less)
Phone $70
Water $50
Misc Items $100

This is based on my salary and DH's projected income if he gets the job he is looking at or another one at the same level. It gives me something to work with anyways. I also have a budget (not bare bones) that we will default to if he ends up with no income. The current EF level would let us live on that budget for about 7 months.

The nice thing about the above budget is that it doesn't cut into the EF but does allow us to pay off the credit cards by October. This probably means no new windows until next year but such is life. Everything else at least will have been taken care of on the house so that is minor.

Buying the house really messed up our cooking schedule. So we are currently trying to get back in the habit. I seem to have mostly cured myself of eating out at work but supper still needs some work. Good news is that more salad and homemade artisan bread has been making it into the rotation (I really only like artisan bread and that is because its crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside).

We have a new porch light to put up to replace the one they left us that has a nice large burned out hole in it (too high of a wattage bulb is not a good thing). It hangs down instead of standing up which is good because the current one nearly touches the roof (aka, doesn't really fit in that spot).

We still need to clean the old apartment and I think that may be a project for the upcoming weekend. Fortunately this weekend I did manage to sort our clothes. 1 bag to throw away, 1 bag to goodwill. Yikes that is alot. Other than the cords sitting next to the TV (still haven't hooked the Wii up), the new house is mostly cleaned up and organized. Finally.

I dragged my DH out this weekend for a beginning run (think mostly walking with some running) and figure we will do that 2x per week to avoid giving myself stress fractures (again). I am also going to push for us to do weight training 2x per week as well. The lack of exercise for the past 2 1/2 months is killing me (no walking a 1/2 hour per day every day doesn't count) and may be contributing to my wanting to eat out all the time (both act as stress relievers). Since neither of these activities require new equipment (well, we did by non-summer workout clothes but that is multi-use and needed), we can just do it and not have to worry about the money for it.

The items that were required were shoes for him (since he hadn't bought any in the past year) and some workout clothes that weren't shorts and tank tops, lol. I was able to get my stuff at Ross but we had to pay a little more for his since Ross didn't have anything in his size (a normal problem, small is a very popular size for the guys).

Its a good thing I restart my budget every month because January was again over budget. Not, surprisingly, for out to eat food or groceries though, just house stuff and clothes. That has got to be a first for me, food under budget and household stuff over budget.

This is what the house has cost so far

Sears: $4034.23

Linen N Things: $585.28

Lowes: $778.48

Home Depot: $815.90

Walmart: $205.30

Amazon: $431.42

Plumber: $345.00

Here is where I list what I spent money on and where I saved money. First the positive.

Lowes: $60 in coupons used

Home Depot: $50 gift certificate from realtor used

Sears: shopped sales, clearances and the outlet store

LinenNThings: Nothing under 30% off was bought (and yes we made sure they didn't just jack the price up to put it on sale)

Walmart: Got what we could here because it was cheaper than any other place.

Amazon: I was picky about the microwave, needed one that doubled as a convection oven and was reliable. They were the cheapest. By combining this purchase with a cheaper stove, saved about $400-700 overall (Double ovens on freestanding gas stoves are expensive).

Plumber: First quote was $1600. Second was from a guy who actually knew what he was doing AND was cheaper.

Now, what I bought.

High efficiency steam washer, refrigerator with french doors and bottom freezer, gas stove with 5 burners and convection oven, microwave that can act as a convection oven, trim (to replace badly mistreated trim), tools for both inside and outside, queen bed set because our current bed will not fit in the bedroom (turning our king into a basement guest bedroom), paint, primer and painting tools, curtains and curtain hardware (we have more windows than walls seriously but at least we never have to turn lights on until its dark out), door locks and door handles (outside doors), radon test kit, etc.

AKA, lots. I now have a 10% coupon for Lowe's good through 1/15/2009. Of course. But I am sure we will find a use for it.

So a little less than $7200. I suppose that's not actually bad considering. Wait till we price out replacing the casement windows with new casement windows.

Oh, I also got the first electric and gas bill for the house. 9 days cost $23 plus $64 that the previous owners didn't pay (no worries, I expected that and was grateful it was so little). I suspect part of that was the gas water heater having to heat up all the new cold water pumping through it. The house water has been turned off a couple of times in the past month. At this rate, the house will be cheaper than our current place for double the space. I will reserve judgment till after I see the first water bill.

This weekend we are finally moving in. Once we are in I think the little projects will be easier to accomplish.

but fortunately my realtor was willing to do whatever it takes to close such as begging her husband to get out of bed early this morning and go into the cold and cut bars of my windows.

Backing up a little, last night we got the all clear on the loan, 20 minutes later we were told we weren't going to be able to close until the security bars on the windows were removed. With a mere 5 days before the drop dead date, that wasn't good.

A flurry of phone calls and the sellers claim they will take care of the bars that night. I am in shock. These are the people who couldn't even sign the first contract on time. But hey, if they say they will....they didn't.

Realtor does a flurry of calls this morning, no one knows anything. She yanks her loving and very tolerant husband out of bed and has him accompany her to the house. The bars are still on. They begin work, more calls and emails ensue as people search desperately for the appraiser to confirm their removal and fortunately all is cleared with a mere 1 1/2 hours before closing.

All said and done, closing was the easiest and least stressful part of the day.

Both realtors saw the value of not trying to wait till the drop dead date. This is why I am always early and always prepare for potential complications. Life is less stressful if complications have time to be worked out.

Needless to say, we made sure to grab a thank you card and some gift certificates to a restaurant we know they go to alot. Funny part was, she had a card ready for us with a gift certificate to home depot. She takes very good care of her clients.

My net worth is down 5k thanks to the purchase but its worth it to have a place of our own. Hurray!

Yeah, I know you all know I am lying about the patient part. But that's okay, I shouldn't have to wait long.

The raise on the other hand is about 10.6% of my old salary so its very nice.
I was basically told I was invaluable and that they wanted to make sure I was happy here because they didn't want me to ever leave which was even nicer.

Normally all raises would go to savings but since we are going to max out the DH's 401(k), this will probably only go into short term savings (EF/house improvements fund).

So new house budget since our numbers are now more known except for utilities.

Savings1 $25
Roth IRA $150
Student Loan $193.6
Electric $120
Water & Sewer $70
Cable $62
Phone (2) $70
Groceries $300
Miscellaneous $800
PITI $1320
EF/HIF $1000

Our new loan disclosures show that both the upfront mortgage premium and the monthly pmi went significantly down thanks to it being a 15 year instead of a 30 year and that some of the closing costs were less as well.

After moving I also suspect that our miscellaneous category will go down since we won't be eating out as much. The convenience of 10 restaurants less than a block away is simply a terrible influence on us.

November 10th we will have all the money we need to close on the house and then some so no real need to track that anymore. Will probably switch to an emergency fund tracker since we will need to replenish that and just plain build up regular savings.

New Budget (when we get the house)
Savings 25
Roth IRA 416
Student Loan 193.6
House Payment 1233
Insurance and Taxes 200
Electricity 120
Water and Sewer 70
Credit Card (paid in full) 1318

On the Credit Card
Cable 62.11
Phone 71
Netflix 15
Bus Pass 70
Groceries,Out to Eat and Fun Money 1100

Remaining 424 would go into the EF.

This is a lot tighter budget then I am used to. 1, DH will be maxing out his 401(k) and 2, I will be maxing out my Roth IRA. That's not quite $1700 per month thanks to the tax advantages but ouch. Course what you aren't seeing is that we have been living on a much tighter budget than this, its just we had the illusion of more money because we were choosing to pay so much on the credit cards to get rid of them.

A big issue with this budget is electricity, garbage, water and sewer are a big question mark. I way overestimated electricity to cover garbage but electricity is the only bill I have ever paid when in a house (currently live in an apartment so I know what I pay now but that won't necessarily translate).

Actually electricity was cheaper in a house than an apartment so I am hoping it will go down but I am not holding my breath.

Another thing you will notice about the new budget is that it is one budget instead of two. My DH and I will be alternating control of the entire budget so that he can get an overall view of what we are spending. In the past I always made sure all excess income was in his wallet not mine because I didn't trust myself not to spend it. This resulted in him having one little bill and lots of free money. Hard to stay in budget if you see no reason to. This will give him the opportunity to see the big picture.

Hopefully this will eliminate the "what do you mean we spent twice we are supposed to, why didn't you tell me no?" situation since I am always the instigator of spending money but couldn't see his side of the equation in order to self regulate (he can't say no to me, trust me, I only think of this as a bad thing when it comes to our finances, I am spoilt and loving it).

Overall, I think we are doing pretty well but I am looking forward to March when everything has been switched over and all the chaos is over.

Starting in January, my household will be saving at least 25% of our income for retirement and the original plan was to save 31%. I am wondering if the original plan of 31% might be a little too agressive given that we will be adapting to owning a house and maybe needing to fix up things. Not to mention our emergency fund will be depleted after buying a house...Hmmm...

Maybe I won't worry about funding DH's Roth IRA until next year. That way we can save for our short and mid-term goals as well as for retirement.

If I only do 25% to retirement, we can do 12.5% for our EF to replenish it. I figure we will need between 14k-19k in the EF to cover 6 months comfortably. At the rate I have it, that would take 16-22 months to do.

Another 3% could even go towards vacations because we love to travel. My big concern though is getting the EF replenished.

We are shooting to be financially independent in our 50's so that we can have whatever type of job we want (workaholics with lots of interests) so that is probably something to keep in mind.

So what do you think is a reasonable percent of a budget to save solely for retirement?

Periodically we have to reset our budget because we get a little carried away so this is the plan for the discretionary part of our budget for October.

$75 x4 trips for groceries
$20 for 2 burger runs
$36 for Royal Gorge Park tickets
$20 for food for Royal Gorge outing
$40 for Harvest festival
$40 for 2 sushi runs
$40 for food while house shopping

It will equalize out the recent overspending to get everything back where we want it.

I have also told DH that we have $50 he can spend and I have $50 for groceries to get us through the rest of this month which should be manageable.

Part of his money will go to buy sticky mousetraps for our apartment...Have I mentioned I am looking forward to a house?

So spoke with my DH yesterday about the food bill (he pays the out to eat). Find out he hasn't checked it very thoroughly and its been running over by a decent amount as a result. While I have learned alot of finance by controlling our finances, he's dealt with it so little that he really doesn't have that sense of budget and need for restraint. All he sees is rent, savings and out to eat.

We talked about what we could do and we decided a couple of things would help.

1. We are going to close his checking account (we are joint on both accounts) because it doesn't have any autopays out of it and just use mine.

2. We are going to add him as a joint user on my credit card that I use for the household budget so everything is going on one card. That way we have the complete picture of our spending.

3. We are going to take turns paying all of the bills at once. Instead of a partial picture, we both will be able to see everything that is happening at any given point. So once we have everything settled, he gets to take over paying for everything. Every couple of months we will swap who controls the finances.

Over the past 8 years together, we have been gradually heading this way but its only recently that our finances have simplified sufficiently to do this. He had no objections really to doing this sooner but I was the hold out. Well I am fine with merging now.

The weird part is I think I am only okay with this because we have almost all the debt gone. I don't feel like I am burdening him with my mistakes. That and the effort of saving up money and paying off debts as a team has shown me that we can operate our finances as one pot.

Its still going to be about 6 months before we can do this since things get really messy come Jan-April due to last minute Roth IRA's, the paying off of the last debt and building a new budget for the house BUT I will have him help me through all of that and then will turn the reigns over to him.

Since we are getting ready to start squirreling away money for our downpayment fund, my DH and I have opened an ING savings. I know a lot of you like them and they pay a decent rate so we did an initial deposit of $50 to get it going.

Now we just have to wait patiently for the verification deposits so we can start putting money into it. We have twice per month that we can put money into it so it should be fun to watch it go up.

Right now, we are going to shoot for 20k before going house shopping which should be good for the price range we are looking at. Obviously though we will shoot for as much as possible.

Here is the background info. I have two remaining credit card debts, one at 0% apr, and one at 1.87% apr as of this month. They will remain that way til Feb 2009. My lease on my current place is up in February. I guarantee our rent will go up, if we rent for less than a year, it will go up by at least $300 per month (don't ask about month to month, the fee alone is 400 plus an increase in the rental rate itself and we will not sign a lease for one more year.)We want to buy something small and equivalent to our current rent or not much higher.

With the market changing dramatically, we will be in a better position if we have the ability to put 20% down and have closing costs covered. Our current plan of pay everything off then saving the money will make things tight and most likely won't allow 20% down. If instead we just pay the min payments on the last two cards, we will definitely have the cash on hand we need.

By keeping the debt we are keeping our options open. The increased debt will not affect our ratios because we want far less than they would willingly loan us.

So we are going to save like mad and start househunting in the fall. If we do go with a loan product that doesn't require all our cash or we get some assistance from the seller, we will use the remaining cash to pay on the credit cards. If not, we can pay the remaining debt with 3 months of our closing.

What you can't see from my ticker since I joined here after I paid the first part off is that we have actually paid off over 32,000 in debt over the past 2 years.

As much as I want the debt gone, I want a home far more, especially at those interest rates. There is only one other way of doing this that might be more financially reasonable and that is signing another year long lease (at a different place) and that is just not something we are willing to do.

That said, the plan could always change again as circumstances change but unless I am missing something, this is the best plan in the long run.

Okay, so lay into me. What do you think is wrong with my current plan and why? I am at least willing to listen.

I mentioned awhile back that was I was going to experiment with using a credit card for bills and cash expenses and see if it was appropriate for me. I have had a credit card number stolen locally in the past which makes me nervous about using a debit card.

So far so good. I treat it like my atm card except I don't have to be quite as paranoid about when things clear.

Point two in its favor is the vast simplification of my budget. Part of that is I have paid off two credit cards and part is that I have bills autopaid by the credit card.

Current budget

CC1: Paid in Full
CC2:$95
CC3: $2200
Electric: $70
Student Loan: $194
IRA: $150
Savings $25
Rent: $730

Way easier to follow than the 14+ item one I had before. Mind you CC1 has rules for use like how much for me, how much for groceries, etc but those are sort of instinct by now and the real bills just pay themselves. I have to worry about missing a bill a lot less. In fact I only have to schedule 4 bills anymore since everything else is automatic. And pretty soon that will be down to 2 since 2 of the cc's are going away very quickly.

I really was afraid it would be easier to spend given my previous expenditures but it seems that somewhere along the way I actually learned some discipline. Imagine that!

I even periodically double check the budget overall to make sure things stay on track.Can't wait to change my ticker to a savings tracker instead of debt tracker.

My friend managed to get a contract job for about 2 weeks. This means $600 less dollars I need to give her. WooHoo! She has also been doing a good job of staying within budget which is better than I did with my first budget. We will probably do a quick talk about next month's budget this weekend since I should deposit the money into her account then anyways.

She has the budget printed out and on her frig so she won't go over so she is definitely committing to this whole budgeting thing. Its still difficult for her to imagine a budget that actually covers everything but time will help with that (her previous concept of a budget had no place for groceries, gas or personal expenditures, not very useful).

Now I just have to wait impatiently until next month for my next debt payoffs. I hate waiting...

I have a credit card that tracks my credit score and the latest was 729, woohoo! Unfortunately and fortunately, that will probably be the last update until I go to buy a house because you have to have activity on the card for it to track the score. And since I just paid it off completely, no more activity.

My stimulus check is no longer going to go to debt. The $1200 check from the gov will go towards my friend's living expenses to keep her afloat through the upcoming month since she still hasn't found work. The good news on that front is that she has an interview on Monday for a full time job in her field. Its less money than she would like but she can't afford to be picky with her lack of experience.

Hopefully we will know more in about two weeks.

First the good news, as of 5/16, I will be down to only 2 credit cards with balances (1 of the 2 is 0% apr).

Now the bad news. My friend that had been doing well finding temp work hit a dry spell and needed money so as to not crash and burn. It was only $800 but that is money that was originally scheduled for debt repayments so my payoff this month will be lower.

I am getting her more comfortable with the idea of budgeting and I am helping her track it more frequently. I think once we get her used to the idea of an allowance, she will not do the starvation/binge cycle that she always does.

Its still slow progress getting her used to it since her parents taught her nothing about finance and she never took any classes on it either (in fact, her parents are the worst examples ever so don't want her to emulate them).

However, she is starting to be a bit more savvy and the constant exposure to our budget is helping her grow more comfortable with finance. She is beginning to really want to develop an emergency fund so she isn't in constant panic mode and she is willing to work to get herself to that point.

Her big holdup at the moment is steady employment. Mind you, if she had ever built an emergency fund I wouldn't have to bail her out but baby steps, at least she is going to try living on a reasonable budget. I have even gotten her to agree that she isn't allowed to spend more than $20 on a person till she has an emergency fund set up (yes this is an issue).

I am still on schedule to payoff in August but a couple more setbacks like that could start to impact the payoff date. Hopefully she gets a contract or a full time gig soon. She has definitely been applying for stuff.

So since my DH has received an increase in base pay and a larger than anticipated bonus, we get to make an extra payment of $500. This means that we will be paying $3000 on credit cards this month! :O

That is almost 1.5 times my income. Oh and I am moving the payoff date from September to August since we only need a half payment in August to finish off the credit cards. I swear I already tried to do this once, must have gotten distracted. Now a really neat trick is if we could finish everything in July! But don't count on it, lol.

We have also decided that no matter what, we are not resigning another lease at our current place. We could live in a shack and still be better off than our current place. So we will try to find a house before February. Our price range is up to $75k (because we are cheap not because we couldn't officially afford more and we want to be able to put 10% down, have closing costs and still have a couple thousand in the bank for repairs, currently shooting for 18k+.)

Obviously this won't be a perfect house from the get go but if we don't have to boil water to have hot water for a couple of months, if we don't have a broken thermostat for 3 months and if we don't have the smell of paint thinner permeating the air from the apartment next door being remodeled it will be better than where we currently are.

My DH got a rather large increase to his base pay yet again thanks to the company restructuring the bonuses. It means the high won't be quite as high but he is guaranteed more. It doesn't change our budget because we already were guestimating a certain amount for bonuses but its nice to have a bit more certainty.

We went out to eat to celebrate and spent $17 total. It was really just an excuse to eat out but that is a small enough splurge to not be an issue. Especially since that is all we are spending.

This month I will have fun updating the ticker, we will be paying in full a $2100 credit card. Now I just have to wait for March, grrr...

I discussed with DH our finances last night. Found out that we have exceeded his allowance for out to eat food, yet again. He decided that the easiest way to avoid that is he will actually start pulling the cash out at the beginning of the month and when we run out, we run out.
He will do the same with his allowance or fun money too.

Me, I just need to stop spending. Since we seem to need something from the grocery store every week, I will translate my grocery money into a weekly limit instead of a bi-weekly limit. $60 per trip should get that expense back down to size. Also, only one grocery store per weekend. The double trips are really killing the budget.

No more eating out at work, that isn't where I want to spend my money so its time to crack down(AGAIN, and I was doing so well before January).

Fortunately, despite our setbacks, we are still on time to our payoff date. We just need to be very careful and make sure we pay attention to what we are doing.

So I ended up tweaking my allowance. As much as I want to be debt free, having a too aggressive payoff that doesn't allow for clothing, vacations or any splurge money qualifies as needing adjustment.

Its only $50 but it will give me some breathing room for both things I need and things I want.

I am getting this money by dropping my 2 credit cards that I am not currently doing massive payments on to their min. payments.

Part of the reason I need to do this is that I have other expenses that have climbed on me.

New Budget
Water and Sewer $40
Savings $25
IRA $150
Cell Phones for 2 $84
CC1 $68
Electricity $110
Cable Internet $62
CC2 $126
CC3 $1700 + any monthly bonus from DH (est ~$500)
Groceries $250 (if this goes over, it comes from my allowance)
My Allowance $160
Netflix $15
Student Loan $194
Bus Pass $60
His Allowance $250 (vacation money needs to come from this as well)
Rent $750
Eating Out $100

One thing you will notice is that this is a budget that includes money from both DH and I. We are working together to get rid of my credit cards so that we can be debt free by September.

So I will be getting this card. It's 1% back on everything which means its going to become my bill card. It also has more cash back based on merchants. Once the rewards reach $50, they mail you a check automatically.

Its better in every way than my other cash reward card so I can get rid of that once all my credit cards are paid off.

I am pleased because I have been currently using one of my unrewarding credit cards as a test run for bill paying and it has worked but I don't get anything back.

I do think I won't fully switch to a credit card bill paying method until all the old credit card debt is gone but for now it works well to balance out the grocery and household need items.It also ensures less hassle if someone gets ahold of my credit card number.

So decided to see what portion of our budget went to what and here are our numbers.

Necessary Expenses - 32%
(or better to call this hard to cut expenses since some of them wouldn't qualify as true necessity.)

Fun Money - 13%

Savings after tax - 5.4%
[doesn't include DH's 401(k, he currently contributes 5% of base pay to get 100% match)]

Debt Repayment - 51%

If one of us lost our job we would still need 45.5% of our income to meet all our obligations at the moment(includes min payment on credit cards).

Once the credit cards are finished and we have bought a house I am shooting for the following:

Necessary - 40.5%
(includes mortgage and taxes since its the equivalent of rent)

Fun - 17%

Savings - 38%
[still not including the 401(k)]

Debt - 4.6%
(one lonely student loan which will have a lower interest rate then the mortgage and is on the 10 year plan)

Course, this is overly simplistic and requires our salaries to be frozen in time and my DH to fail to earn any bonuses BUT it does give me something to look at.

So we have been wanting to avoid pesticides and other lovely chemicals in our foods. To do this, we decided to start shopping at Sunflower Market. Its a grocery store that is set up like a farmer's market (75% of floor space is devoted to produce, cheese, bakery bread and meat). We used to shop there when we lived at our other apartment but it wasn't as convenient for us at our current place.

Now, I was a little nervous about the expense since a lot of organic stores are way more expensive. Imagine my surprise then when I discovered that it was cheaper than the grocery store I have been going to!!

The milk did cost more and flour would be pricy too but the produce is sooo cheap in comparison as is the fish that it couldn't even compare. We spent $86 on a trip that normally costs us over $100.

So I am going to drop my grocery budget back down to normal since it looks like the costs will be comparable in the long run.