Budgeting

Okay, I get asked this a lot, "how in the heck do you pay for everything that you do with what you get paid?" I always laugh and go, "I dunno, I just do." I always know the dates of when my bills are due, when I get paid, and the total on all across the board. Now the only way that I can do that is by budgeting, I have a budget and I MUST stick to it, or else! Or else I cannot pay for anything. There is very little wiggle room and it definitely sucks.

So as you can see based on the picture to the left there is NOT a huge amount of wiggle room for me to work with. It's incredibly difficult to plan ahead and make sure that I can pay for school and pull my way out of any debt that's over my head. However, I do what I gotta do.

My rent is paid for through a barter system along with a few other needs, like baby sitting (sometimes which has to be paid for and is $20.00 an evening if I do not have a negotiated barter set up).

In Blue are those items that will either be going away soon or are places that I can save money each month. In Orange are those bills that I want to pay more on each month in order to bring down the total amount owed. And then in yellow are those items that I need to look into reducing by any means necessary.

For example, I watch my credit score and am working on getting it better and better all the time. If I can get my score up 50-90 points I can reduce my auto loan by 75-80 dollars per month. In gas expenses, I just drive less. I am now carpooling twice a week to save on gas and making sure that when I do need to drive that I do it as sparingly as possible. Now when it comes to the grocery bill this has to do with all of the 'special' food that I must get for E. I can reduce here by combining coupons and sales together at points of purchase, I'm good at this, but sometimes I can be 'lax about it.

Now, you may be wondering what that random $200.00 is in my income calculations, it is that I am reducing my income by that much as a result of taxes and such being pulled out of my paycheck each month. Daycare should also be re-listed as Kindergarten as I pay for her Kindergarten program. Also, I will not reduce my car insurance for each month. This just will not happen. I have a new-ish car (due to the auto-loan) and if anything were to happen in the car, all liability is covered. I've seen people pay for cheaper insurance get into accidents and have barely anything covered at all and them be liable. No, no thank you.

This is how I can survive off of what I make each month along with all of my expenses. People that do not have children that are paid more than I do, with barely any expenses to their name complain about being able to pay their bills ... ya'll get a deaf ear as far as I'm concerned. Some of my friends do this and I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the very fact that they refuse to create a budget and live within their means or even below their means. It is imperative to do just that so that you can afford the hick-ups that come up in life as well as to be able to save for the future.

"A penny saved is a penny earned"