I have always had a hard time deciding on a firm budget. I tend to earmark money for many, many things. First I decide to use it for this, then I decide to use the same money for that. So I am trying to firmly make up my mind about how I want our money to be spent. Here is my plan...as of today.
For the full year, I will need $8,000 to fully fund my freedom account. So I think I would like for that account to reach at leat $6000 before using any of it toward the CC. This makes sense in my head, but I am not sure how to explain it. Basically, the budget is like this:
Bi-weekly set up:
grocery: 200 (Everything over this will be saved and sent to the FA)
gas: 100 (Everything over this will be saved and sent to the FA)
FA: 300
CC: 200
That amounts to $800. DH actually makes $820 plus overtime. I think for now anything over $800 should sit in the checking account as padding and misc. funds since we there is nothing in the budget to cover misc. costs.
Further funds: Church job $700
$100 back to the church
$100 401K
$500 CC's (for a total of $700)
My two extra pays per year will go to the cards.
Any tax refund will go to the cards.
Each of us needs to add a dependant to our W-4's which is money we can add to the CC payment.
Deciding on a firm budget
August 9th, 2006 at 08:21 pm