Couple Money » Budgeting

Using Cash for Lunch is Paying Off

Elle — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:12:32 +0000

(Sorry for the post being up later than normal, but I had to take care of a fee for my business checking account this morning. More on that later…)

Besides trying to cut gasoline expenses this month, I’ve also decided to switch over to cash only with eating out for lunch and so forth. I usually just pull out my check card when I grab a bite. However I was curious to see if I would spend less if I used cash.

At the end of each week any cash left over is placed in a safe spot for the end of the month tally. Whatever is left over will be used to pay down the student loan.

ATM Runs for Cash

So I decided to take out my food money once a week from a local branch ATM. The first thing I noticed when I went was that I was conservative when choosing how much to take out. Looking over fast food expenses for the last 4 months, I noticed I spent and average of $130/month or about $30/week. Since Wells Fargo, like many other ATMS, offer cash withdrawals in $20 increments and I didn’t want to take more than my average, I took out $20.

Mentality of Eating On $20

It sounds kind of ridiculous, but having the cash in my wallet be my only source of money for eating out changed my perspective. I went into college student mode and became more aware of the deals in my area.

An unintentional effect of using cash is that I also have found ways to get a bit more of it by carpooling and being the driver. I’ve taken a few people on errands (both going to the same places so why not?) and I’ve received a bit of gas money (~$15). It’s not a ton of money, but it’s still just a bit extra.

Bought Clothes with the Leftover Money

What’s fun about using cash only is that the $20 is going further than I thought. Saturday comes and we have my brother and sister in law in town for a brief visit. We took a tour around the neighborhood and in the shopping area was the local consignment shop for babies and kids. Looking at my wallet, I decided to go inside and see what I could get. I managed to pick up a summer dress, a play outfit, a bottom to go with our baby girl’s Wonder Woman onesie, and a fall jacket. I still had a bit of cash left over. So I managed to spend less on eating out, but I also picked up some clothes for our daughter.

Thoughts on Using Cash

Have you noticed something similar with cash only spending? Do you spend more or less when you only use what’s in your wallet?

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Looking at Last Month’s Numbers

Elle — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:36:15 +0000

As I’m going through our finances for this week’s net worth update, I wanted to share a few highlights I discovered with Mint. the numbers will be shifting quite a bit with the net worth reviews – we bought a car, we paid our taxes, and we went over budget with fast food.

It was fun thought and I expect it to more mellow next month.

Cars are Expensive!

Besides seeing a big chunk of our money gone to buy the car ($10k), we had over $300 to pay the DMV to get all everything squared away in the lovely state of North Carolina. While we had a general idea of how much it would be, it’s still hurts to see the checking and savings accounts so low.

Taxes, Taxes…

Estimated taxes were due earlier this month. The bright side is that work is going well. I’ve been busy over the last few months and now that the big part tax season is over, it’ll wind down just a bit.

I’ll be focusing my attention on a couple of projects that I started last fall, but had to put on the back burner to keep up with clients’ work.

Fast Food Frenzy

Between the trips and going out to hunt for cars after work, we had been eating out quite a bit more than normal at the beginning of this month. thankfully after buying the car and getting the CSA deliveries started, we have cut back considerably.

Thoughts on Reviewing Finances

It’s fun to reflect on the past month, not just money, but also with family events. Next month, we’ll be working hard to cut back on some of our expenses (plus we’ll have the fuel challenge up tomorrow- please join!).

I’d love to hear from you about April’s events.How did last month go for you? anything memorable happen in April for you and your family?

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Our Bills are Creeping Up

Elle — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:43:21 +0000

This last week had been a week of unpleasant surprises in the bill department. For the most part, we pay our bills online and many of them are scheduled through our bill pay. Our bills have remained fairly steady, but I noticed I’ve had to adjust a few of them this month. I decided to double check our bills and call to see what was going on.

Home Association Dues

We have 2 home association bills – a monthly bill for the general maintenance, water & sewage, and landscaping of our places plus we have a quarterly bill for the community pool. Both of them have gone up this year and while by themselves they’re not a big impact, together it’s an extra chunk of change out of our pockets.

I’ve adjusted our monthly budget and the scheduled payments.

Cable TV

Time Warner stopped itemizing the bills they send us. Now they just list the service we have along with total. We can’t tell how much we’re paying for our broadcast cable or for our internet access. We keep saying that we’ll cancel the broad cast cable when we put up the digital antenna, but we still haven’t got it up. The sad thing is we have it, we just need to anchor to the wall to get clear reception.

I decided to do something about our bills and motivate us to get this installed. I called Time Warner Cable this morning (as I’m writing this post) to 1)find out how much we’re paying for our services and 2) remove the broadcast cable. After speaking to a wonderful customer service representative, I discovered we can knock off $20 off of our monthly bill. Unfortunately the customer retention department was not in right now, but she lowered my internet bill $16/month.

I’ll call their retention department in about an hour to see if I get get this cable removed from my bill. Hopefully it’ll be easy and we’ll cut our bill further.

Thoughts on Bills

How often to you review your monthly bills? Have you noticed them creeping up a bit? Have you’ve been able to get some of them lowered?

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Letter to Myself (College Student Living)

Elle — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:17:28 +0000

While getting the last bit of paperwork in for the refinance, I came across some old records, including a pay-stub from a job I had years ago while in college.

I was in no way rich, but I think made enough that if I had a better financial system, I could’ve done much better. I thought it would be fun to build a doable budget based on that paycheck I found.

Living on a College Student’s Budget

While in college I worked several jobs. One of them was for a call center that was opened pretty much 24/7. I applied for work there because the had an opening for editor(forgot the title) checking advertiser’s ad submissions for a search engine company.

The pay was better than many of the internships offered for students and I had some flexibility with my schedule since the call center was always open.

My take home average was $925/month (not counting any commissions or bonuses). Fortunately I was renting a room at a friend’s house for $200/month (utilities included), so I had a safe and affordable roof over my head.

On the other hand, I was stupid and I had a car loan which ate up a huge amount of my pay – not only the car payment, but also the insurance I was required to have.

Monthly Expenses

Breaking it down, here’s what I came up with on how I could have budgeted better:

Housing(plus utilities): $200
Car Loan and Gas: $300
Car Insurance: $75
Food: $ 150

Total Monthly Expenses: $725

With the remaining money, I would first save up a small emergency fund (2 months of my expenses) and then worked on paying off my credit cards. Once that was completed I would’ve put $100/month into the 401(k).

I would tell my past self to go ahead and sell that car. It was simply too much for my small college student budget.

As I mention I didn’t include commissions and bonuses because they varied paycheck to paycheck. That extra money would be split between long term financial goals (emergency fund, pay off debt, and invest) and the rest would be used for fun money.

Thoughts on Working While College

Man, I wish I had this advice years ago! Haha, maybe someone can use it to create a spending plan. I’m curious – how many of you worked while in college? What job did you work? How well did you do with your budget?

Note: I guess I should’ve titled this post ‘Budget to Myself’, oh well…

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Step Away from the Card -Watching Expenses in February

Elle — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:05:16 +0000

January has been a fun month – plenty of visits from family and friends (coming to us, which is much easier than traveling than visit all of them). We’re so happy that they came and caught up with us. I hope we can do this more through out the year.

As I was winding down for the evening last night, I checked our bank accounts and noticed our buffer shrank a bit – that’s our cue to keep an eye out on what we spend. Looking ahead, it seems like we’ll be more budget conscious over the next month.

Upcoming Expenses in February

February may possibly be an eventful month – besides a family trip we may also (finally!) get to refinance the house (see below). With so much to do, we’ll be keeping a close eye on our budget. We’ll have to avoid using the joint account for unnecessary expenses if we want to keep a buffer in place.

Visiting Our Friends in the Mountains

Next month we’re traveling to spend some time with our friends. That means we need to make sure the car is ready. It’s about time for an oil change, so I’ll schedule that as soon as possible. It also means spending a day cleaning the car out just to get out stuff packed in there!

It also means saving a bit for gasoline and food for the trip. It’s nothing major expense wise, but just something to keep track of for the budget.

Refinance the House?

I mentioned last week that we were a bit stuck with one of the lenders on getting an estimate for a refinance (ironically with our current lender). We did hear from them (not the original person we were working with, someone else) and it looks like they weren’t even going to try and compete. I kind of disappointed as I wanted to stay with them – I would’ve prefer having one less account to track. However when the gentlemen kept telling me that 5% was such as a great rate and refinancing to 3.25% wasn’t really going to save us on monthly payments (of course – we’re looking at long term!), I figure he wasn’t willing to even look at getting us a decent deal.

Fortunately another offer came in and it was for 3.125%. It looks as if we’re going ahead with the refinance deal (after we finish reviewing the paperwork tonight and asking a few questions). While that means saving money for the family in the long term, it’ll be a tight fit over the next month.For one thing we have to decide if we want to put more money down for the closing or if we want to roll some of that into the new mortgage.

Status of the Car Replacement Fund

Depending on what we do with the refinancing, the car replacement fund will be affected somehow. If we decide to go ahead and take care of everything at closing that could mean pulling some money from our savings and pausing on the funding the car replacement fund.

While the car we’re using is uncomfortably small for us now, it’s not an emergency. If we have to wait a bit more before buying a roomier family car, then that’s fine with me.

Thoughts on No Spending

I think we should talk a bit more tonight and see where we need to adjust and put a Mint alert on spending. What’s the longest you’ve gone without spending on discretionary items? What are your plans for next month?

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