What does your budget or set expense list look like for January? Will you make it? Does it look like a good month?

 

 

Our expense list, excluding most work expenses:

$1,500 for rent

$130 for vehicle insurance (some tax deductible due to work truck)

$180 for utilities

$175 for cellular service (partially work deducible)

$110 for subscriptions and financial charges

$400 budgeted for food and household supplies

 

 

We have our normal bills and budgets.   Need to put the extra money on paying off xmas and other household things.    expensive fall. needed a lot more clothes and shoes then expected plus a couple of household things like the new powerhead for the builtin vacuum, outdoor led lights.   

We have two family birthdays which I have gifts for already.  plus a couple of kids birthdays.   January is the same for us every year so I know it is party time.  At least no school fees,charities or fundraisers!  there has been stuff every month.

do plan on signing up the kids for things like skating or something similar. 

It will be interesting to see the electrical bill with our student being away for 3 weeks and using the led lights!  see if it goes down or just up a bit.

• 160  accident
• 134   fuel
• 210   insurance
• 190   auto loans
• 25   auto service  savings
• 400 Debt
• 50   education
• 200  entertainment/ misc
• 300 groceries and household supplies
• 950   mortgage
• 30   pet vaccinations,  the last ones until August!!
• 55   natural gas
• 85   electricity
• 106   internet/cable/ landline
• 100  cell phones
• 300  auto registration

 outgoing:   3080

Incoming:   3275

excess of :  195

I am hoping that I can get that excess to be a little higher, in order to get a little in savings, but I thought that I should be really conservative in my planning.

I have no holiday debt - I paid for everything already - so my budget for January looks like any other month.  I drove 800 miles each way to visit my mother, so I had to pay for gas - but I planned for it, and my utility and food bills are lower because I'll have been gone 8 days, which will offset the cost of the gas slightly.

We also did great paying for holiday gifts and food with cash...first time ever.

1200 - mortgage

360  - elec/gas

170 - cable/phone

170 - cell phones for 5

400 - food

400 - gas

400 - med, pets, other

400 - credit card pay (don't use anymore, still paying down)

1200 - property tax (might be due in feb. and will be taken from savings

700  - savings accounts

Total - 4200 (not counting tax paid for with savings account $)

Income: 4676   (any extra $ will be added to credit card bill)

peace.

 

 

We also don't have any debt from Christmas as we paid for everything with cash and out of the budget.  So, our January budget will just be a regular month for us.  I do want to pay some extra on our Dell balance (DS#1's laptop for college) as one of our goals for 2009 is to have this paid off before June. I also need to take my little dog to the vet for his annual checkup.  I want to be able to purchase a years worth of his flea/heartworm meds so that I don't have to drive to the vets office so often.  It is 32 miles round trip to our vet, yes I could find a closer place but they have a holistic vet on staff and Zeke loves him! SO changing vets is NOT an option. I will sit down later this week and actually work out the entire Jan. budget but I think we will be ok even with paying extra on the Dell account and the money out for the vet visit.

Shellia 

I don't feel like I have myself on track very well with my budget.  However, it hasn't really changed from any other month.  I just want to get back to recording my expenditures.  I was thinking of taking some Christmas money to get a small notebook that would help me track everything in one place.  Nothing fancy though.

We didn't put anything on credit for Christmas.  I just want to start January off on the right foot. I want to continue my positive pattern for living within my means and possibly figure out if there's any extra I could throw at savings instead of relying on bonuses, extra odd jobs, etc.

I don't have mine done but it doesn't look good....dh will be short on hours two weeks in arow due to unpaid holidays that I forgot about. He has had 2 weeks already of barely short hours just because work is that way right now.

We have a vehicle for sale right now that the renewal is coming up in January. Even if it doesn't sell by the due date, we'll take it off the road and then i won't have to come up with $138 to renew it, or $149 for a new starter that is beginning to fail.

Also this week we dry the goats up so they have 2 months to put their energy into their developing babies, so I'll have to buy regular milk and Soy milk at the grocery until March!

Mort. 390 (Extra 10% for principal)
Gas 62
electric 23
water 52
internet 27
car ins. 52
food 200
gasoline 75
hair cut 15
rx 4
pets 50
toiletries 30
cleaning 10
shrink 8
car repair fund 50
retirement fund 50
oil change 20
-------------------------

$1118 Outgoing

Income:
$1116 disability
$700-1200 from work (Trial work period, it's legit)

Extra goes to emergency fund and pays for dates