As I sat down to make a new budget, I had my old budget in hand and considered it 80% there. No one is perfect, but it's not like I forgot to add in a new designer bag anywhere in there...
But then lots of questions and concerns started coming into play. I tend to be a frugal and conscious person. However, I love buying those small things that make life worth living, like flowers, and teas and cute pink things (no judging!!!).
And where did I have to start, with my debt. Being able to fully admit where I am and where I started is a great thing. It shows me how far I've come these past two years.
Total Debt: $29,670.44
This includes my student loans and my car loan.Yikes, that's quite a bit, but quite a bit of progress from 36k in student loans and 10k on the car. With my car being half paid off and that key chain still on there, along with extra payments, we are making progress every day!
Each month there are a few priorities I want to take into account.
1. Paying off my debt sooner rather than later.
2. Enjoying life, including family and friends.
3. Being prepared!
Being able to take these things into consideration, categories start falling into place.
Based on 2200 an average take home pay...
Rent: 264 + 125 (part of home repairs that are underway)
Car Loan: 320 (extra 100 each month)
Student Loans: 500 (extra 311 and change each month)
Roth:360
Remaining: Not a lot...
Ballet: 100
Hair and Nails: 40
Taxes: 200
Remaining: Even less...
Hmm, and that got me thinking. There's a few categories that are missing here. Like savings and tithe and FOOD...
Church: 50
Savings:?
Groceries: maybe 100?
Gas: 100
Household:100
Everything else:100
There is something that needs to be done. These past few days have been good to me, but that is the present and does not speak of the future. What happens when your budget does not balance? Do you start cutting your debt repayment to fit in food? Or perhaps putting the needs first, debt repayment second and then everything else third? Do you stop planning for those 'important to you' things? Take out the spontaneity from life? What is it that must be done to balance the budget?
That is the question that I'm still working on and will be for the next few months...
What do you think I should do? Do you think I should stop contributing to my Roth or perhaps lower my student loan payment? There's no wine budget...I NEED MY WINE...
Me and my wife had to cut out contributing to our 401ks when we had that much debt. We have just recently started contributing again, 2 years later.
ReplyDeleteThe way we started out was asking ourselves what is most important in life. For us that was church, the "needs", family, friends, helping others, keeping 1k in savings, debt repaying, and then everything else. That kinda helped shape not just our budget but the kind of people we want to be in life. Yeah, we could have paid more into paying down debt and get out of debt sooner but we would probably do that by sacrificing time with friends because we didn't have the money or celebrating family birthdays or we wouldn't be able to help people in our church go on summer mission trips.
All that to say, your order of importance is going to be different than ours, but how you spend your money reflects on what is important to you so your budget should probably reflect those things too. Good luck!
Thanks so much for those words! I have just bought a journal that is all about writing my intentions for the day and it's making me realize that my money and my goals are definitely not aligning and there needs to be change. Hopefully with some time and patience everything can be realigned..
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