Budget, Budget, Budget!!!

So, now that you know we are changing our Financial Family Tree by

1.       Me being honest and open with my spouse by taking her opinion and her women’s intuition into the account.

2.       Accepting responsibilities. Waking up to a harsh reality and coming to my senses realizing that we have an elephant pet living with us called “Debt” and fiercely attacking it with a “snow ball” effect approach.

3.       Changing destructive behavior. This is the fun part – and I’m not being sarcastic.

This is the part where I started feeling that there is actually a way out. I started getting my dignity and integrity back! This is the part that actually will enable you to make sense of your finances, finances that God had entrusted you with! For many, budget is most dreadful word. Not to our family! To me it has become an instrument that brings unity, eliminates chaos, erases blame game, empowers me and my wife to express our needs and wants, provides an incredible opportunity to plan for the future as well as a whip that makes our money behave. Below, I’ve included our June, 2012 budget for our family. Why for June only? Because in the beginning of July we will sit down, knee-to-knee with my wife and see where we have done well, what part of our budget we struggled with and what are some of the expenses we should plan for in the near future. However, I must mention that almost every part of our budget is adjustable on the monthly basis except for;

a.       House payment – constant until we pay off the debt, then it will be increased to pay it off as quick as possible

b.      Church – can only go up once the debt is paid off.

c.       Paying off loans – will only go up as we settle with creditors, get raises at work and/or get an extra income from various side projects (I’ll talk about this in the future posts).

Budget	%
Paying off Loans	24.08%
House payment	19.84%
Bills and Utilities	11.74%
Church	10.00%
Daycare	9.24%
Groceries	8.94%
Gas	6.89%
Car Expense	1.70%
Gifts	1.51%
Personal Hygiene	1.21%
Entertainment	1.14%
Health and Fitness	1.06%
Home Improvements	0.76%
Clothes	0.76%
Life Insurance	0.68%
Blow Money	0.45%