Friday Financials

• Received the new coupons for the rental property mortgage payments.  Our mortgage payment has dropped to $356 per month.  I plan to still pay $400 each month.
• Also paying extra on my new car. Minimum payment is $232, I paid $300.
• I had about $40 left of my spending money from last pay check so I took Mr. R and the girls out to dinner last night.  It was a really rough day at work dealing with lay offs then I was dealing with insurance issues for the garage.  I was mentally exhausted. The sun was shining bright and I just felt like having someone serve me dinner and getting a drink to unwind.  It worked.
• Extra Money from Last Pay -
• $70 gas money will move to EF savings - I was able to put off getting gas until tomorrow.  With our new cars and the lower gas prices, I can probably drop the gas budget to about $75 every 2 weeks.  That should be more than enough.
• Adding another $36 to EF savings for a total of $106 this week
• My goal is to add $4,000 to our emergency fund this year.  So far in 2015 we have added $826.
• Adding $40 to both of the girls savings accounts
• Finally got the garage repairs figured out.  Our insurance is covering everything except our $500 deductible, which is great as the repair is over $3,000.  We have $630 in our home repair fund so we are covered.

Financial Updates, Reworking the Budget & Revising Goals

Financial Updates:

• $100 was set aside for car fees.  I wasn't sure how much I would end up having to pay for transferring the plates to my new car or any other car related expenses.  It ended up only being $3.50 so I paid out of my spending money.
• Electric Bill is $349 and some change this month! So that extra $100 that I didn't need for the car fees will go towards electric.
• We received our $50 refund check from the insurance company since the new car is cheaper to insure.  The $50 was moved to our savings account.

Revising Goals for 2015

I wrote about my original goals for the year here.  But things change.  We recently purchased a new car for myself and our plan is to buy out Mr. R's lease.  Since both are cars are newer and under warranty we won't need to save as much towards car expenses and a new car but I want to pay extra on the cars to get them paid off sooner.

My car payment is $232 per month for a 75 month loan.  Payments start in March.  I know 75 months is a ridiculously long time to pay on a car so the plan is to pay it off way before then.  It's the most expensive car we have ever purchased but I absolutely love it.  I've never had a car that has driven this well on ice and snow before.  I love the features of the car, it's very comfortable and has plenty of room.  But the reason I love it so much is that I feel safe driving it in the bad weather.

I'm estimating that our payment to buy out Mr. R's car will be less than $200 per month.  My goal will be to pay Mr. R's car off first as it will be the smaller loan.

Reworking the Budget & Goals for 2015:

• Save $50 per month towards car repairs to cover:
• oil changes
• brakes
• tires
• Pay $530 per month in car payments: 
• $232 my minimum car payment
• $298 towards paying off Mr. R's car quicker
• Increase mortgage payments on rental property: Starting in April, we will have an extra $60 per month from our mortgage income.  When we purchased the condo, I pulled $500 out of each of Mr. R's and My personal savings accounts to put towards the down payment.  I have been paying our accounts back $30 each per month out of the rental income.  Our accounts will be completely paid back in March.  With the extra $60, we plan to:
• Save an extra $30 towards repairs
• Pay an extra $25 per month on the mortgage
• Bump water bill payment budget to $55 if needed.  Used to only budget $50 but this past month it was a little over that.
• Add $4000 to EF in 2015
• So far this year, we have already added $587 to the EF
• Vacation Savings: 
• There are some small trips that I would like to fund this year and then start saving for our 2016 family vacation.  So far we've saved $772 but part of that was to finish paying off our 2015 cruise.
• Winery weekend with some friends
• Put in Bay with the kids
• Family Camping weekend at Camp Tippecanoe 
• Taking the girls tent camping for a weekend
• At least 1 night away for Mr. R and my anniversary
• The money to fund these trips will come from:
• Extra projects that I pick up at work that I earn commissions on
• Mr. R's overtime/holiday pay
• Ebay Sales
• Ebates Checks
• 3 paycheck months

Friday Financials

Under Budget:

• $35 left in the food budget.  Rolling this into this pay periods grocery money as I went a little over board at Aldi and Ollie's yesterday.
• $52 left in gas budget - will be moved to savings
• $18 "extra spending money" - will be moved to savings

Extra Expense:

• A few weeks ago I had a bill from the dentist for $124 that I wasn't sure if I should pay or not.  I wrote about it here.  I'm glad I waited as I just received the new bill and it is now for $89.80.

Vacation Spending Money:

• I've started accumulating snacks for our trip.  I always pack a gallon size bag full of a variety of snacks on any trip we go on.  So far I have little bags of Ritz Crackers with Cheese in the middle, Fruit Roll Ups, Beef Jerkey, Dum Dum Suckers, yogurt covered raisins and granola bars.  I had a 15% off coupon for Ollie's.  So I bought a whole bunch of snacks and split them up for use at home and on the trip.  Total Spent $8

Savings:

• Vacation Fund: $355
• Car Fund: Added $265 to our car savings fund.  This puts us at exactly $1,000.  We had more but took $1500 out for a down payment for my new car.  We plan on putting this $1,000 down on Mr. R's car when we buy out the lease.
• Emergency Fund: $350
• Girls Birthday: $400 Their Birthdays aren't until the end of Summer.  But I always set money aside out of the first 3 paycheck month. This should be enough for gifts and their party.

Grocery Spending:

• Aldi - $134.69
• Ollie - $10.00
• Acme - $19.00

2015 Friday Financials

When I was figuring out our Financial goals for 2015, I forgot to add the $120 per month we send to our IRAs each month into the budget.  Most of our retirement savings is in our 401k's but we put some each month into IRA's also.  This just means that our goal to save $5,000 this year out of our regular income will just be a little bit more of a stretch.  I plan to still make it though.

Regular Income:

• Went grocery shopping today.  There were some really great deals on marked down food so I stocked up.  And Chicken Breasts were $1.79 per pound packed in packages of about 5 pounds each.  We eat a lot of chicken so I bought 3 packs.  Spent $145 out of our $220 biweekly food budget leaving just $75 until next payday.  But we have lots of food now and our freezer is stuffed so we should make it.
• Added $40 to Big R's savings.  (Little R's savings will come out of next pay check.)
• Water bill came in $9 under budget for our condo so that $9 will be added to our savings goals
• The Investment Condo's water bill came in $14 under budget so that extra will be added to the home repair fund.
• Total deposited into Savings towards our $5,000 goal is $84. (A larger portion of our income goes to bills on the first pay of every month.  We should be able to save more next pay day.)

Holiday Pay:

$195 added to our vacation fund.  We only need to save $106 to have our February vacation completely paid for including spending money. I know I'll be receiving a nice commission check next pay for an extra project I worked on at work that should more than cover this.