A Mike Life – The Life of Mike!

Budgets, budgets, budgets…

// May 2nd, 2009 // family

The word used to send chills down my spine. Budgets. The thought on having to live on a specific amount of money every month, of having to watch what I spend and track every single expenditure was not how I wanted to deal with my finances.

I never wanted money to dominate our lives. But of course, I wanted to HAVE some. *grin*

Jina and I have done okay with our money, but we did go through a stretch early in our marriage when I tried to get into the online sports writing gig (during the dot-com explosion) and we ended up depending on our credit cards for a bit too long.

We’ve come a long way since then. I wont even try to ignore the fact that once we became regular tithers at church, we found our money issues less “problematic.”

It’s the single most important thing we do with our money every month. I highly recommend it.

Last November I wrote a blog about how we cut all kinds of expenses to make room for Lyla coming into our lives. I got rid of my truck, we went to a lower cell phone plan, refinanced Jina’s car, got cheaper homeowners insurance, etc.

So this year comes around and we are doing just fine, but Dave Ramsey speaks at our church and makes me realize how much better we COULD be doing.

This past April 24th finished our first complete month on a new budget. The goal of what we’re doing is to pay off Jina’s car as quickly as possible. After that, my student loans will come due next spring and we’ll have to tackle those.

But once that is over…we’re home free except for the mortgage. At that time, I will (Lord willing) refinance to a 15-year loan and try to pay off the house extra-quick. But that’s aways down the road.

The first month was great though. We cut down our food spending big time. Our budget allows for us to eat out only twice a month, which we save for the weekends. You can probably judge from all the pictures and stuff that we live for Friday night dinners lately.

Now, we have our own spending money that we can use for lunches, clothes, or whatever, so we have some freedom there.

The bottom line is we’ve cut things so much, we’re paying over triple the normal car payment. We wont have it paid off for probably 14 months, but who knows what we can do with any extra tax money next spring. Maybe it will be sooner.

What has been awesome the first month is just learning that a budget doesn’t have to be a pain in the butt. We have food money, spending money and a gas budget. Then we pay the bills and the extra amount for the car.

We keep what’s leftover in there for random stuff that comes up…like doctor appointments, parties, clothes for Lyla, etc.

It seems almost too easy for some reason.

The idea of having a set amount of money each month had changed my attitude. I am bringing more lunches to work. We’re both cooking a ton at home and having a lot of fun doing it. Well, some fun. Cooking isn’t always our cup of tea.

We’ve tried a few budgets before, but this one seems easier and somehow more effective. I only hope we keep at it and push on through until that car is paid off. That will be quite an accomplishment.