Cutting It Close (Part 1 of 2)

I'm cutting it real close but I think we can do this.  What do I mean?  I have exactly $207.22 in my checking account.  After my automatic transfer from my checking to savings account I'll have approximately $50.00 to work with until Friday when I get paid.  Our approach to budgeting is that every dollar that comes in, has a name.  I first heard this when I used to listen to Dave Ramsey.  But over the past month, after carefully following and categorizing my budgets, every budget also has a date.  What I mean is that, not only do you have to give your incoming dollars a name or a home to a budget, but you also have to be aware of when these budgets are due.  Most Americans who earn a paycheck typically get paid on the 1st or the 15th of each month (in this case my wife) or bi-weekly (me).  So we need to be aware of when our bills our due in relation to when we get paid so that we will have enough in our checking account to cover all the expenses.  In this case, we're Cutting It Close!  Sometimes I think to myself that it would be a lot easier if we both got paid the first of each month for the entire month.  Then we can just pay all our bills in the beginning and use the rest for our debt snowball, savings, and miscellaneous budget.

In any case, I see this as a challenge and an opportunity.  The challenge is not to buy breakfast and lunch at work, rather, eat breakfast at home and bring in leftovers for lunch. The opportunity here is not to spend money but to save it and to learn to be more frugal by eating at home and packing my lunches when I have plenty of food and leftovers to work with.



On the way to church today, we had to stop at a gas station to fill up the minivan.  That cost $53.00.  That transaction has officially put us over our miscellaneous fund by ($34.00) for the month according to our Mint account.  With 11 days left, it's going to be another tough challenge not to be able to spend anymore or find additional income we can put towards our miscellaneous fund.  We really shouldn't have gone over it at all, if anything, we should still have around $200 left to spend. But a couple weeks ago, my wife and her middle sister threw a baby shower for their oldest sister and we bought Chinese food for the family while the middle sister was down from Boston.  I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, all I'm saying is that we should have been in good shape but these moments come along and it's good to spend it on your loved ones when you can. 

I am proud in the fact that I have been trying my best to stick to the budget as much as I can even though I have gone over already.  In the past, if I would have gone over any budget, my tendency would be to give up for the month and I would start spending away telling myself that I'll do better next month when everything resets.  Another part that I am proud of is that I haven't gone over in any other budget.  Albeit, all my other budgets are fixed expenses like the mortgage payment, utilities, and other bills, it makes it easier to manage one budget problem than having to deal with and manage more than one.  Like I said in the past, another budget problem we would always go over was our grocery budget.  But now since we moved to the cash envelope method, it feels like a fixed expense and I don't have to worry about going over for the month.  We have approximately $170 left in the envelope and I think that's enough to feed us until the end of January and probably into February as well.  

Now back to church.  The title of the sermon was "In The Wilderness With God" and the bible passage was Exodus 6:1-12.  I enjoyed the sermon from a non-financial perspective but there was one part he said that brought me back to my personal finances and how it directly relates with our journey to zero debt.  These are the exact notes that I took on my iPhone as he was saying them:

1. Do not give up our promised future to satisfy the present craving.
2. Give up temporary satisfaction in the present to receive the promise of God will give us in the future.

To make a long story short, most of you know from my very first post (a little over two weeks ago, to me ages ago), that it will take us approximately 7-9 years to be completely debt-free.  What he said gave me hope not to succumb to debt fatigue, that we shouldn't satisfy our present cravings but to hope for what is to come in the future.  In other words, don't focus on what we can do with our money now while we're still in debt and possibly go deeper into debt, but with a disciplined approach and paying off debt, we'll have to sacrifice the temporary and present cravings now so that we'll be debt-free in the future and all the possibilities that come along with being debt-free; building wealth, working for ourselves and not the bank, and the ability to give away our money to charity.

This post is part 1 of 2 as it says in the title.  I am going to write part 2 of this post on Friday and share with you all if I was able to make it with $50.00 left in my checking account until payday.  The good news is, both our gas tanks are filled up.  The bad news is, I still need to buy baby wipes cause we have 1 or 2 packs left.