For 2012, I wanted to come up with a more accurate budget, seeing that our baby would be born this year and hopefully we’ll be able to control our spending without worrying too much about it. I figured if I budget better, then I’ll hopefully be less stressed about where our money is going. Of course, I’ve also decided I’m not going to be so darn hard on myself because I’ll have a baby and have no clue how that’s going to impact our budget. If it costs us more money than I anticipated, then it does, and I’ll adjust our budget accordingly.

Here’s our 2012 budget:

• Mortgage- $793.19
• Escrow- $215.00
• Energy- $150.00
• Car insurance- $88.00
• Verizon- $40.00
• Cable, phone, internet- $125.00
• Food- $350.00
• Retirement- $100.00
• House Stuff- $50.00
• Gas- $200.00

Some notes:

The mortgage is just principal and interest.  I used to round the payment up to $800 or so, until I found out that the extra money that I was paying was being applied to the next month’s payment!  Talk about annoying.  To make additional principal payments, I have to mail a separate check to a certain address.  What a pain.

We escrow our taxes and insurance ourselves.  We refinanced our mortgage to a home equity loan a few years ago, and the bank will not escrow for us.  We have a separate escrow account with ING.

The reason our energy category is a flat $150 each month is because we budget for irregular expenses by transferring that amount into a separate account each month.

The Verizon bill includes just my cell phone, as Mr. Money has a phone paid by work.

The car insurance went down a little since last year because the cars are older and so are we!

The cable, phone, and internet may get changed this year.  It seems like that’s a high amount for that.  I’m thinking about switching our phone to something like a Magic Jack since I really like having a home phone, and maybe dropping the cable.

I don’t know if the food budget is a reasonable amount our not.  Guess we’ll see after a few months!

We’ll have to really start saving for retirement ourselves, as I won’t be participating in my 401k plan at work, and Mr. Money’s employer doesn’t offer any retirement savings plan.  I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

The house stuff we’ll have to play it by ear with. We’ve done a lot of work to the house over the past five years, so we’re not anticipating any huge expenses like new flooring, etc.  I would like new counter tops and flooring in my kitchen, but that’s not a necessity so we’ll have to see about that.

Gas will go down from our monthly expenses since I won’t be commuting to work and back every day. Yay!  This might be too much budgeted, but who knows at this point!

Of course, I won’t know how this budget works for us until I’m actually staying at home with the baby.  I’m just glad we’ve got a general idea of where we’d like our money to go.  I feel like there are a few categories I’ve forgotten, but it’s a flexible budget, so that’s okay!

Have you budgeted for 2012?

2012 is already here, and I’m a little behind on our financial and life goals.  I’m a little uncertain about what I should aim for, as we’re going to have a brand new baby and will have to adjust to the new expenses and life with a child.  My goals this year will be attainable (I hope!) and I am crossing my fingers for the best year ever.  It certainly will be interesting and a lot different than past years!  Here are some of the goals I’d like for us to accomplish:

1. Set up a savings account for the baby. The baby has not even been born yet and already has a stash of money.  I’m going to open a custodian savings account for the benefit of the baby.  I will also have to research 529 plans in case that’s the way we want to go.  I’m thinking it would be easier just to open the UTMA (Uniform Transfer to Minors) account and wait until the money accumulates and then go from there.  We’ll see.

2.  Figure out life insurance. I had life insurance through my employer, but I’m not too sure what’s happening with it since I’m leaving the bank.  That’s something that we really need to address, especially with the new baby coming.

3. Change beneficiaries. I’ve got various family members listed as beneficiaries on our retirement plans and life insurance, but I would like to change it to the baby.

4. Make more money blogging/working from home.  I’d like to be able to contribute financially to our household as much as I can.  In addition to blogging and writing, I can shoot photography if I have time.  Of course, this all depends on the baby, as that’s my first priority.  I’d like to stay at home for at least the first three years of the baby’s life, and it would be awesome if I could make enough money freelancing to do so.

5. Stay debt free.  This was on last year’s goals as well, but I think it’s important enough to stay on this year’s.  I will have to say, if there was a good reason that we needed to borrow money, I probably would do it.  I don’t think debt is the worst thing in the world as long as you’re responsible and borrow money for the right reasons.  Mr. Money’s not going to get the 2012 Mustang he wanted for instance, but if we needed to take out a loan, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  I’m going to do my best to avoid it, though!

6. Finish up all house projects that need to be done.  We need to repaint the cement on our porches, paint the shed, figure out what to do with the dining room flooring, and redo our master bath.  I’m going to do as much as I can to make the house look really good this year.  We’ve done a lot, but I feel like there’s still so much more to do.  These projects shouldn’t cost a ton of money.

7. Learn to relax and not worry so darn much.  One of my best friends gave me some great advice when it comes to money.  What’s the point of having a ton of cash in the bank if you are miserable?  I’m not going to worry about saving every penny where I can like I used to.  I want to be happy.

What are your 2012 goals?

At the beginning of 2011, I set some financial and life goals for myself and Mr. Money. Here’s how 2011 played out for us:

1. Keep up with the clutter and declutter 365 items from our house this year. SUCCESS.

I know I decluttered and donated a lot more than 365 items from our house this year.

2. Pay at least $3,000 down on the principal of our mortgage. FAIL. We did pay off $2679 off our mortgage prinicpal, so I think that’s pretty good!  Our extra money this year went to our savings account.  Honestly, I’m not too concerned with paying down our mortgage aggressively at this point.  We’ve got other priorities.  I do wish our mortgage balance was lower, but we can chip away at it.

3. Travel to somewhere fun and exciting.  SUCCESS? We took a trip to Colorado when I was around 20 weeks pregnant.  It was our last trip as just the two of us.  I really wish we had gone to Hawaii last year for our fifth anniversary, but I was a tightwad and didn’t do it.  Oh well.  The nice thing is that we saved money by not going, allowing me more flexibility to be a stay at home mom.

4. Get knocked up. SUCCESS. I am most proud of this goal, as we’ve been trying to have a baby for quite some time.  We are really excited to welcome our baby in 2012.

5. Live on one salary. SUCCESS.  We did successfully manage to live off Mr. Money’s income.  My income did pay for health insurance and retirement savings, so we didn’t factor that into the equation.  I’m okay with that.

6. Make more money from side hustles. SUCCESS? I did make money blogging this year, although it wasn’t enough for me to quit my day job.  I’m hoping 2012 provides more money making opportunities from home for me.  Of course, I’m going to not stress about it because I’ll have a new baby.

7. Stay debt free! SUCCESS! We did stay consumer debt free this year, and only have our mortgage debt.  It feels like in the past few months we’ve been spending money like crazy, but we’ve saved for this, so it’s okay.

For 2012, I’m going to make some realistic financial goals.  I have no clue how our budget will be affected by the baby, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to be too hard on myself.  What’s the point of having tons of cash in the bank if my life is miserable?  I’m going to do my best to find a nice balance in 2012 between budgeting and living life.  I’m anticipating it to be the best year of my life ever, so that’s a positive start!

I need to decide what to make our 2012 goals and come up with a new budget for after the baby is born. Fun!

Overall, I’m happy with the way we spent 2011.  I’m very thankful we didn’t have any huge expenses (well, minus paying for the baby’s birth ) and that we were healthy and happy throughout most of the year.  I feel very blessed, and am sure that feeling will stick with me throughout the next year!

Happy New Year!

On Friday night, Mr. Money and I sat down and went over our budget.  We’ve gotten a little lax over the past few months to say the least.  I totaled up our monthly spending for the month of August (since we weren’t on vacation at all that month) and it was pretty surprising.  After viewing the totals on some of the categories I wanted to throw up.  However, that isn’t really very productive, so we decided to be a little more strict with our budgeting and try to work a little more at staying in line.  It will help us reach our goals, and enable me to stay at home with the baby.

Because I’m crazy, and I think it will help keep me accountable if I post the actual numbers of our variable expenses here, I’m going to do it.  Feel free to shame me if you want; I deserve it.

Groceries, including household items= 371.76
Clothing (work shoes for Mr. Money)= 42.39
Gas= 298.20
Eating Out= 369.95

I wasn’t too surprised about the grocery category, because we try to buy grass fed local beef and other meats from a farm close to our house, as well as purchasing many organic items. I knew that our grocery total was going to be more than I wanted it, but there’s little I can do unless I want to compromise the quality of food I’m eating. With me being pregnant, that’s not something I really want to do.

The eating out part of our spending? Is completely ridiculous and I can’t believe that we let ourselves spend that much on eating out. I know part of the problem was that I was still experiencing “morning sickness” and when I had a craving for something that actually sounded pretty good, we indulged. Apparently I had a lot of cravings during the month!

We’ve decided to cut back on the expenses that we can control. Of course, the fixed expenses we have we don’t really have much wiggle room, so we’ll have to leave those how they are.  Here’s what we’re proposing for the new budget:

Food= $350
Dogs= $20
Netflix= $8
XM= $25
Gas= $300 (I’d like to make this lower)
Eating out= $120
Retirement=$50

Here are some of the things that I know we’ve been slacking on, causing us to spend so much money: not meal planning, not having things for lunches for me, and being lazy.  I guess it all boils down to being lazy.    I have now realized that I can’t afford to be lazy, so I’ve got to change.

Of course, I decide to do this right before Christmas!  And then after Christmas, I’ll be quitting my job, and then we’ll be having the baby!  It’s more necessary now than ever, so I’m going to have to suck it up and not have any excuses.  Any freelancing income I get will have to be used for monthly expenses, but I’m happy with that.  If it needs to be done, it needs to be done.

Have you ever realized you’ve gone way over budget and had to change it?  Any advice for me?

I feel like my financial life is so boring right now.  Don’t take that the wrong way, though.  I am totally happy with the way things are going now because it’s low stress.  There are definitely areas where we could improve our money situation, and we need to sit down and talk about what our goals are.  One of my biggest budget busters has always been eating out, and that continues to be where more money than I’d like from our budget goes.  It’s just so easy to eat out, and when something sounds good and you don’t have the ingredients to make it, that’s when we end up giving in.

Meal planning definitely helps, but there are sometimes when it’s just overwhelming to deal with and I end up putting it off and then it never gets done.  How frustrating.  I should come up with a list of 30 or so meals that we enjoy and then rotate those weekly.  It’s not like we’re always eating different things anyway.

We’re continuing to save money, but aimlessly, and that’s okay.  I don’t have to have concrete goals of where our money needs to go.  I can decide that later.

I’ve always been a worrier, and it seems that takes so much energy out of me that I’ve got to relax.  I can’t worry about everything, and it’s not like worrying does anything productive anyway.  Going with the flow instead of resisting has been key for me.  I try harder to not say that I’m opposed to something because you never know what opportunities you’ll miss if you take on that attitude.  Instead, I try to think along the lines that if something came up, we’d come to a conclusion that would work best for our family.

How’s your money situation?

This past week I spent time up in Michigan with my family.  I drove there, and of course had to stop a few times to get gas.  There were a few things I noticed over the different places I observed gas prices.  For one, it was cheaper to buy gas when I left on Saturday, May 28 in the South versus anywhere else I saw.  While in Michigan over the week, I noticed the gas prices jumping to $4.19 a gallon! Ridiculous.  I thought gas prices were supposed to go down.

Another thing I hate about getting gas in Michigan is that there’s a different price for cash versus credit.  Where I live, this option does not exist, and I am so glad!  I use a gas rewards credit card to earn money back on each gas purchase, so when there’s a difference of ten cents a gallon less when you pay cash, it kills me!  I can’t help but think I could be getting the gas cheaper if I was strictly paying cash.  Of course, if I calculate it, my 4% back on gas purchases at $4.19 a gallon is a 16 cent rebate, so I’m still six cents ahead when I use my credit card.

I understand why merchants give a discount for paying cash (or stick it to the people who pay with credit cards!): credit card processing fees.  Merchants have to pay a credit card processor a certain percentage of each transaction that is charged at their store.  When customers pay cash, the merchant doesn’t have to pay any fees to anyone and the cash is immediately available to them to use.  Sometimes credit card processors wait days to make the funds available to the merchants, making it harder for them to operate their businesses.

While I do hate the fact that there’s a price difference for paying cash versus credit at the pump, I understand the reasoning behind it.  I also think there are many people who are far too lazy to get out of their cars to go pay for their gas.  Plus, if they’re anything like me, they hardly ever have cash on them!  I don’t carry more than $20-$40 on me at all times because if I have cash, I’ll spend it.  I wouldn’t have the $60 on me that it probably would take to fill up my tank.

Another tricky thing I noticed when I went to get gas at one gas station is that they switched the location of the cheapest gas.  I always get whatever grade is the cheapest, and it’s normally the very last one on the left.  When I went to get gas, I grabbed the last pump on the left and then looked at it.  It was actually the middle grade!  Had I not been paying attention, I would have gotten the more expensive gas!  That kind of irked me.

I hate when gas prices fluctuate like they have been.  I wish they would just stay around one price so we wouldn’t have to worry that we won’t be able to afford gas in the near future.

Have you noticed gas stations doing weird things like the cash versus credit discount? What angers you about the gas prices lately?

Eating out is so expensive, especially if you like to eat at sit down restaurants versus fast food restaurants. On the other hand, it’s so convenient to just go out to eat when you don’t have something thawed or you just don’t feel like cooking and cleaning up. Eating out is probably my biggest money downfall. When I get home after 5:30 PM, the last thing I want to do is go straight to the kitchen and spend time cooking a huge meal. The other night I decided I was going to make homemade ranch dressing that called for mayonnaise, and I decided that I would make the mayonnaise since we didn’t have any. Ha. I had it going fine until I followed the recipe and added too much of the lemon juice/vinegar combo and it broke. I was mad.

I hate cooking because it seems like you spend an hour cooking and then it only takes 10 minutes to eat the food. Not a very good ratio there. Unfortunately for me, I also really like saving money and that trumps me being lazy. I know it’s not financially possible for us to dine out every day. I’ve got to come up with a plan to make dinners easier for me. Here are some of my ideas to make dinners easier and cut back on our eating out.

-Make meals ahead of time and freeze. This would be nice for days when I really don’t feel like cooking, but wouldn’t be so good for nights that I forget to take something out of the freezer. This sounds like too much work for me, but it would be a good weekend project. I could even figure out a few different meals I could make and do some batch cooking.

-Think of simple, easy meals to make, like breakfast for dinner. Meals that don’t take a lot of time to cook are right up my alley! I love eggs for dinner.

-Look more into crockpot meals. I haven’t ventured into this area before, but it would probably work well for us! Of course, now that summer is right around the corner, I don’t know how appealing hot meals are going to be.

-Grill out. Buy some chicken or steak and grill out, using vegetables as the side dish. Easy, and healthy!

-Get better at meal planning. Meal planning is such a pain that I despise doing it, so I put it off. I should come up with 10 or so meals that I know we like, their ingredients, and then make a shopping list from that. That will save me time, money, and stress! This is probably the best idea.

That makes me feel a little better. I’ll need to work at it, but I know it’s definitely something I can do!

How do you balance cooking, eating out, and saving money?

We are already over three months into 2011, and I can’t believe it.  A quarter of the year is over already!  That’s nuts.  I thought I’d do a review of how our 2011 goals are going so far.

1. Keep up with the clutter and declutter 365 items from our house this year. We’re doing well on this challenge so far.  I’d say we are more than halfway there, and I’m very excited for that! It feels good to get rid of things.  Coincidentally, the Veterans of America pickup service was scheduled to come to our house today but never showed up. Humph. I’m not too happy about it because now I have a pile of crap sitting on my front porch that now I have to deal with.

2. Pay at least $3,000 down on the principal of our mortgage. So far we’ve paid $961.94 towards the principal of the mortgage.  We’re almost 1/3 of the way there, so I’d say we’re on track to meet this goal.  If we aren’t on track by the end of the year, I will just go ahead and make a lump sum payment on the mortgage to get it accomplished.

3. Travel to somewhere fun and exciting. We haven’t gone anywhere so far this year, and that makes me sad   I love traveling, but with Mr. Money’s job we haven’t been able to get away together.  Since December, we haven’t even had one full day off together!  I know it could always be worse though.

4. Get knocked up. Obviously this hasn’t happened yet, and I’m pretty sad about it but we’re doing all we can to make it happen right now, so I guess that’s a positive?

5. Live on one salary. This is one goal we’ve been successfully knocking out of the park! I decided to have my direct deposit routed to our ING savings account, and that’s worked out very well. I’ve freaked out a few times if our main checking account falls below like $300, but I know that we’ve got money if we absolutely need it so I need to relax on that. I guess I thought we’d be saving more money than we are by living on one income, but with health insurance, taxes, 401k contributions, and other deductions from my paycheck it is really not that much money.

6. Make more money from side hustles. I’ve made some cloth wipes to sell to cloth diapering mamas, but haven’t listed them on etsy. I’ve also knit some longies too but haven’t listed them. Looks like I need to work on this more! My blog income has been pretty steady so hopefully that will increase more soon!

7. Stay debt free! This has happened. Yay!  Of course, if we buy a new stove, I’ll probably finance that on our Home Depot credit card as long as I can get 0% APR on the card.  I’ll pay it off before we get charged any interest, so no big deal.

I’m thinking 2011 will be a pretty good year for us financially.  I hope that we accomplish all these goals, plus more!

How’s 2011 treating you so far?

As I mentioned the other day, we really don’t have a rhyme or reason when it comes to grocery shopping.  I prefer to shop once a week or so and plan meals, and Mr. Money goes the fresher route and wants to shop every day.  I’m a little type A, so that doesn’t fly well with me.  I’m trying to come up with a grocery budget and meal planning solution that makes both of us happy.  Here are some of the things I am doing:

-Set a certain amount of money each month aside specifically for groceries and specifically for eating out.  This is something we don’t do and probably would benefit us greatly.  We just fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to the amount of money we spend on food, and food is one of those categories that I won’t sacrifice quality on.  I want good quality food, and I know that is going to cost me more.  I do think we can figure out exactly how much we want to spend each month and then meal plan from there.

-Limit the amount of times we set foot in the grocery store.  I know that most people are tempted when they shop more, so it will help us save money if we limit the number of times we go shopping.

-Pack lunches the night before so I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to eat for lunch.  Not only will it save me time, but it will also save me money as well.

-Maybe start doing a cash budgeting system for food and groceries.  I know we’ve been bad in the past if we don’t have food we’ll just eat out.  We all know that’s not good for the waistline or the budget.  We need to scale back on that but find a good balance.

-Start eating more vegetarian meals.  I’ve started eating good quality meat but I notice when I eat a lot of it I don’t feel as good as I could.  Eating more vegetarian meals will save us money and hopefully help our health.  Meat, especially good quality meat, is super expensive!

-Grow a bigger garden and preserve more food.  Last year our garden wasn’t too productive, and I’m hoping this year will be much better.  I want to learn how to can green beans this year!

These are some of the ideas to help us with grocery budgeting. Do you have any more tips?

Last year, the goals I set were purely financial. It was hit or miss on whether or not we actually met them, but overall I’m happy with our finances and we’re debt free so that’s pretty much all that matters. This year, instead of making the goals all about money, I decided that I would set some different goals that included life experiences. After all, that’s the real reason we spend our money wisely: to enjoy life. With that said, here are some goals I’d like to work toward this year.

1. Keep up with the clutter and declutter 365 items from our house this year. I won’t be alone in this challenge, so that’s good to know! I’m a little intimidated by the number, but I am thinking once I get started it really won’t be too bad.

2. Pay at least $3,000 down on the principal of our mortgage. The mortgage is a debt that doesn’t hang over my head quite like the student loans did, but it’s still debt nonetheless. It feels really good to see the principal balance go down, so this is something I would like to do.

3. Travel to somewhere fun and exciting. Even though it will cost us money, I think it’s money well spent. We value going to new places and exploring more so than we enjoy new Stuff, so I think the hardest part of this will be deciding where to go (and then parting with the money!) I’d love to be able to take a couple trips with Mr. Money, but I think one big trip will have to be all that we take this year. Who knows, this may be the last kid free vacation we’ll be able to take!

4. Get knocked up. Self explanatory. I’m hoping this year we finally get pregnant. If it doesn’t happen in 2011, we’ll probably look into other ways to become parents, and maybe even through adoption. I hope that we can have at least one child of our own. Keep your fingers crossed for me if you will!

5. Live on one salary. I think living on Mr. Money’s salary alone will be good practice for what will happen if goal #4 finally is accomplished. When we have a baby, I plan on staying at home to raise the baby, so living on one salary will be good practice. With my salary, we can save it for the future and maybe even tackle some fun home improvement projects.

6. Make more money from side hustles. Whether it be that I actually start making soap and selling it, or I pick up some freelance writing, I would like to increase my income aside from my 9-5 job. It would be awesome if I could increase my side hustle income enough to go part time at my 9-5 job!

7. Stay debt free! After paying off credit card debt, student loan debt, and a car loan, I’m over having debt! It feels amazing each month to not have the worry of all those different payments coming out of our checking account each month. I love having fewer and fewer bills!

Those are the things I’d like to tackle this year. I think they are all goals that will make me happy when they are finally accomplished.

Here’s to a happy and successful 2011!