It's been a while since I wrote a post.  I've been doing a lot of thinking regarding our personal finances.  Our current plan is using the debt snowball method to pay off  my wife's student loan first and then our car.  If we were to stick to this plan religiously, we would be debt-free (minus the mortgage) in about two years.  Now that my son is approaching the age to send him to daycare, that's a cost that I need to factor into our plan.  Another cost to factor in is daycare for baby #2 sometime in February/March.  With daycare costs for both children, that's significantly going to reduce the money we can throw at our debt snowball.  The good thing about personal finance is exactly that, personal.  So with that, there are two options we can pursue.

Option #1 is to continue with our current debt snowball method and pay off as much as we can until baby #2 starts daycare.  Once baby #2 is in daycare, we need to go back to the drawing board and readjust our budget.

Option #2 is to stop our debt snowball immediately, and instead, pay our monthly bills and sock away all additional income into savings while increasing our miscellaneous and grocery budget.  The reason for the increase is because since starting this blog, we have managed to go over it each month.  It's funny that once you're on a plan, these extra expenses seem to pop out of nowhere.

I am leaning towards option #1 because how satisfying would it be to be debt-free?  It's all about sacrificing now to enjoy later.  The good thing it, with a toddler and baby #2 on the way, we'll probably be pretty busy for the next two years or so and won't have much of an opportunity to travel.  Once we are finally debt-free, it's been way overdue for a nice vacation with the family.  By then, our children will be old enough to be able to appreciate a nice vacation and they'll actually remember it.

My apologies for the long title.

I remember exactly how I felt two weeks into January.  Time was going by really really slow.  But it's already the end of February and we're about to make our second debt snowball payment.  We still have a long way to go, but there is a sense of achievement as each and every day passes by.  We are one month closer to reaching our goal.  With this achievement, also comes disappointment.  We have gone over our grocery and miscellaneous budget by quite a bit.  Approximately $400 total I'd say.  I'll have to wait until Friday to see the exact amount.  But there is also a sense of achievement in this disappointment because in the past, I would have given up on the budget if we've gone over by this much.  It's time to be honest with myself and take responsibility of our finances in a real way.

What's the point of all this?

It's been about a week since writing a post, and since then, we have gone over our miscellaneous budget with 9 days remaining in February.  In addition to going over, we've also gone over our grocery budget by $27.59.  On what?  Food, obviously.  But food is a necessity.  Might be time to fiddle with the budgets so we can increase our grocery budget while decreasing miscellaneous because Eli eats sooo much!  His nickname at the church nursery: Food Monster.  He's the only toddler who uses the high chair to eat the whole hour while the other kids run around and play.

Anyway, this post is about our miscellaneous budget.  Although we've gone over, I'm still proud of the progress we have made so far.  If I have gone over our budget in the past with 9 days to go, I would have just given up and forget about our budget until the next month.  But since we have a plan and goal in place, I need to be honest with myself and continue to categorize and keep track of where our money is going.  So what I'm going to do below is list all of our miscellaneous transactions for February to see where the leaks are.  Here goes:

As you know, our budget for January is tapped out!  Meaning, we cannot spend anymore miscellaneous or grocery money until February rolls around.  Unfortunately, I had to get gas this morning so that doesn't count or else I wouldn't be able to go to work to make that money!

Anyway, towards the end of the work day yesterday, my wife and I are texting back and forth about what we should eat for dinner.  I throw out some options out there but they're all denied.  These were some of the options that were denied:

• Pizza rolls
• Brinner (breakfast for dinner)
• Pasta

So then I start rummaging through the fridge in my mind thinking about what else we could eat and it turns out that we have plenty of choices!

• Skirt steak
• Ground beef
• Chicken breast
• Pork chops
• Mandoo (Korean dumplings)
• Pork loin
• Ramyun (Sapporo or Shin)