January’s Total Budget busters from the mid-month assessment: -$265.32
Mid- to End-of-Month Budget Busters: Debits
- -$70.00: Garage Door Opener Repair. (Actually, replacement — woo-hoo!) (And it runs like a top, I tell you what.)
- -$50.89: Commissary (used debit card for groceries because I forgot my cash)
- -$33.36: Post Office. This should have been in the original budget.
- -$106.74. I may never have a real grip on how much The Hubs will need to spend while he’s deployed. I’m okay with that. I must say, he is watching every penny and we are communicating about what he’s spending (and not spending) money on as well as we ever have, separation or no.
Total –> -$260.99
Budget Busters: Credits (Yes, they can be unexpected, too!)
- +$200.00: Groceries. I originally budgeted $400 for this! Almost a week into January, I decided to participate in the Pantry Challenge. That coupled with The Hubs leaving mid-month really challenged me to see how low I could keep the grocery bill.
- +$136.47: Fuel. I originally budgeted $250.00… Again, The Hubs leaving mid-month affected the total spent. That, and I switched out driving both cars to keep from having to fill up either one before the end of the month.
- +$281.25: Travel Reimbursement for The Hubs came through! Woo-hoo! I really wasn’t expecting to see anything in this area into until well into February. (Even if I had expected it, I wouldn’t have counted it until it posted to the account.)
Total –> +$617.72!
Total Budget Busters for January –> +91.41 !!
Can you believe it?? That travel reimbursement totally saved me. Perhaps I’m a little overly excited here… But this is what it takes, people! I set a goal toward the beginning of the month of what I thought we’d be able to put toward our debt snowball in January… With all the negative budget busters, I didn’t think we’d make it. But we did! And then some! I’ll post the final figures tomorrow 
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Widget Created Thanks to Frugal Zeitgeist and Beating Broke
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh Jolyn! it sounded so good that you will be (credit card) debt free by the end of this month! This should call for a celebration! Call up Mary Hunt and she will pour champayne for you! (Do you remember she always said that?).
I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!! (and so happy for you!)
Hip-hip-Hooray for Jolyn!!!!
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jolyn Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Thanks! I do appreciate it! Although, I really don’t feel like “celebrating” because of the stinking 2nd mortgage… (And no, I did not remember Mary saying that! Love her.) (You know I have a friend who was interviewed on her radio show? Says she’s just as nice and sweet and genuine off the air as on.) But I am already thinking about things I might let us do soon! I just don’t want to get carried away because we’re NOT DONE YET!
I’ll post on the 2nd mortgage soon, and you can tell me if I’m crazy
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I am a new reader to your blog–thanks to your guest posts over on $5 dinners. And I must say I LOVE your site too! I am a homeschool mom to our daughter who is in 6th grade and am only working part-time in the afternoons at our 2 year old son’s daycare, which has made a drastic cut in our monthly household income. Not that I am complaining because you can’t put a price on peace of mind and a stress-free education for your kids. Needless to say I am new to trying to reign in our monthly spending while at the same time trying to pay off debt–as I still have a whopping balance on student loans and am still trying to pay as I go for classes that will eventually lead to me becoming a licensed teacher. I was so proud we had both credit card balances down to 0–but that lasted all of about two weeks as we had a budget-buster plumbing bill of $1,100 to replace leaky faucets, corroded pipes, and a complete toilet overhaul(which ran our water bill up from it’s normal $30 to up over $100 from it not shutting off completely). The plumber cost was about twice what I had planned for but all the repairs were necessary in order to avoid future problems. I paid for half and had to charge half-UGH!!! Another budget buster was our electric bill which was double what it normally is partially due to afore mentioned running toilet.
I must say that I am super impressed with the amount of debt you have knocked off of that snowball and my question to you is exactly how are you doing it? I would love to give our non-mortgage debt(student loan and car loan) a swift kick in the pants so I can proceed on to the mortgage debt, but I am not really sure how to go about it.
[Reply]
jolyn Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Chelle,
That is quite a loaded question. Have you introduced yourself to Dave Ramsey yet? If you have not read “The Total Money Makeover” than I recommend starting with that. His approach really helped shake up my financial paradigm and gave us the focus and motivation we needed to start living a different way.
The first thing Dave recommends is building an initial emergency fund of $1000. Psychologically, that helps so that these repairs and things that come up aren’t so discouraging. Non-mortgage debt is then the focus; we even followed his advice to halt our retirement contributions while we do this step. That was huge for us in helping to really tackle and conquer it in a short amount of time
He covers so much in his book and includes so many real-life case studies. We are trying to follow his plan; but I admit, we are not as “gazelle intense” as others Ive read about. Baby steps!
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Thank you SO much for being so “real” with your blog…it seriously helps me to understand how someone else is working through debt repayment. It is a TRUE picture of how someone does it…not the generic stories you hear of, “I paid $10,000 off in 6 months”, but you never hear HOW they actually did it.
Also, thank you for posting this blog post the way you did. I had all these goals for paying down debt this month (February) and it already started with a HUGE budget buster. I was so discouraged, but the month has only begun and maybe I can save in other areas to make up for this budget buster. Thank you for helping me with a “perspective change”.
[Reply]
jolyn Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:04 am
Anna, seriously? Your comment just motivated me to keep blogging. I have honestly asked myself, “Who on earth cares about all these numbers?” I’m obsessed with them right now, and ultimately I blog to help with my accountability, so I keep it real by number crunching. It really helps me to know that a blur of numbers mean something to someone else, too. And if it helps someone to keep at their debt even when their budget breaks. Well, then, all the better. Keep at it!
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Good for you! I’ve been frugal on groceries, but my husband and the kids have been spending their money on dumb things like pizzas out (they discovered this awesome new place w the best pizza I have ever had). I get cranky, as I have always planned leftovers, and prefer to cook all our meals.
I think I am going to go back to the Pantry Challenge for February.
My budget buster has been buying a plane ticket to go see a sick relative this week. Ouch.
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jolyn Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Well worth it. The plane ticket, that is — not necessarily the pizza.
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Hi Jolyn,
I’m new to your blog. I really like this post, as we can seewhere exactly your money went and where you’ve saved.
Hooray for your positive outcome!
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What a good job you did!
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