The "B" Word

So, while I don't generally approve of the "B" word in my house, right now I feel no other choice than to use it.

I'm just so frustrated about this situation!

I can't believe this is about to come out of my mouth.

I'm talking about a "Budget."

A capital "B" Budget at that.

Sat down for some financial counseling yesterday, thanks to my friend Thom Dellwo at Cooperative Federal Credit Union! I made the appointment because they have free hours for Coop Fed members (for a limited time-- so go now if you are a member!) and my childcare situation has eased immensely since my father-in-law moved to town (Thanks Grandpa!) So, no excuses.

I have sat down and written out a budget before, but I usually get to the part where I don't understand why we are still well-fed and have clothes on our backs while not hugely in debt. For us, budgeting isn't really an "exact" science. So previously, I've just kept the ongoing tally in my head of how much we had spent overall and when payday was, and perhaps most importantly, when our tax refund was coming. And that worked.

Looking at the sheet with the numbers on it just makes me panic. And then when I start to explore our options for things like public assistance, I get really, really upset. If we were to make $800.00 less per month, and qualified for foodstamps/state health insurance/etc, we would have $1000.000 more in our pocket each month. Where is our incentive? But I digress.

So, living without a budget based on exact science won't work to do the things that I want in the future (and neither will getting angry about our broken system), like remodeling the downstairs apartment, going debt-free by 2016, and buying a small fortune of liquor to use for bartering once the economy collapses (ha ha...oye..?)

So Thom helped me work through all that budgeting angst and anxiety and now, what I'm left with is finding $300+ dollars/month to start breaking even consistently, stop going without so often, and to squirrel money away somewhere.

Finding $300/month isn't that bad, until you realize how bare bones our budget already is. We have two leads to pursue, one is to get school loans consolidated and hopefully waived temporarily, and two is to move our food(including takeout) and toiletry budget from $700/month to $500/month.

So that will be my challenge for February. Want to join me?

My first step is quitting coffee. Starts Monday.

You don't have to quit coffee or start Monday, but I would appreciate some Budgeting Buddies. Drop me a line and tell me what you are looking to do with the money you save.

I'll be logging in soon with some menu ideas as well as how I'm going to source those ingredients. Fun stuff, right?

I'll also spend some time sharing with you how our family of five survives on a shoestring, like recipes for our DIY cleaners and toothpaste as well as what to do for free family fun.

So look forward to that, I am!