Hey,
This is just a small positive rant. 28M here, for years and years I have avoided doing a budget by rationalizing myself with a bunch of excuses like "I don't have CC debt, I have a condo with good equity, I have an emergency account" Yadda, Yadda. Although I am well educated in PF, I still would not do a budget. It's so easy to rationalize bad behaviour.
However, now I have a 6 month old son. We bought a car on credit (18k @ 6% on 84 months, so much for the PF education) and insurance was more expensive than expected since I never owned a car before (100$/month!). Daycare cost a whole lot of money.
In the matter of a single year I went from not really worrying about money to having more consumer debt (damn car) than liquidity and my wife and I just make enough to pay the bills.
So this weekend, after a few Dave Ramsey rants, I decided that I had made enough excuses. Dusted off my mint account and prepared my first real family budget.
Here's what I found out after all is said and done :
- My condo has 2 home insurance! I was paying 45$/month for the past 12 months. A few phone calls later I'm receiving a 550$ cheque. (Canadian laws proteckts the consumer and only allows us to have a single insurance, thus they have to refund any overlap)
- A few years ago I rented a water tank. It's 31.50$/month for another 7 years. I called them to buy off the contract... 700$. That's a 1 946$ savings.
- I was - still - paying for cable when we don't even have it installed. 50$/month saved!
- I gave up on counting the eating out.
- This is more on the relationship side. But my wife always trusted me with the money. We have a joint account and we put all our money together. She usually asks me "Can we afford this or that?". I would always answer based feelings instead of facts.
It felt really good to sit down with her, show her our income / expenses. Show her that she will have a 100$/month "Fun budget" for herself so she does't guilt trip herself about spending some money on herself.
We agreed that at the end of each month, we will do our best throught the month to track our expenses in real time. At the end of the month, we will sit down together, review the budget, and plan the next one together. The simple fact of involving her in the process makes our marriage stronger... even after being together for more than a decade.
Here's what our budget looks like:
Income
- My income: 2 974$ after taxes
- Her income 1 475$ after taxes
- Child support 328$
Total = 4 777$
Expenses
- Auto: 610$ (Gas + insurance + doubled my car payment)
- Internet: 55$
- Utilities: 75$
- Cellphone: 50$
- Fun money: 200$ (100$ each)
- Life Insurance: 67$
- Groceires: 400$
- Gym : 15$
- Condo: 465$ + 100$ condo fees + 30$ insurance + 130$ taxes (yep I live in a big city, it was the cheapest 2 bed condo in 2010)
- Baby supplies: 90$
- Daycare: 200$
- Misc: 100$
- Wife students loan repayment: 95$
Total = 2 816$
Left over: 1 961$
That will go straight into paying off the car quicker and the 6k left on my wife students loan. By the end of this year we should be able to clear all our debt and have a good an extra 700$/month to save towards a better home (our condo still sucks!).
Welp that was a bigger post than expected. Hopefully this will motivate the 21 years old "me" scrolling on reddit to not wait till he's 28!
Submitted March 18, 2019 at 05:51PM by anonymous_startup https://ift.tt/2TUeghJ
