Blogging Away Debt Blogging Away Debt follows real people on their journey to debt freedom — with tips on the debt snowball, budgeting, cutting expenses, and staying motivated.

by Hope

Seeing what my new monthly expenditures should be is a good start to formulating my debt payoff plan.  So without further ado, here’s my estimated budget for our month to month living as of today.

Those labeled with BE are business expenses that I am able to write off on my taxes and are primarily used for business.

A couple of things to note:

-Water Bill: I am still estimating my monthly water bill.  I’ve only received two to date…one was $30 and one was $80.  I’m going with the higher number to be safe.

-Electric Bill: Same with electric, we didn’t turn on the heat until a week or so ago, so haven’t really gotten an accurate picture of what the electric bill will be here with heat/air running, so again going with a hopefully too high number to be on the safe side.

-Car Insurance: I don’t know what my new monthly bill will be, but anticipate it to be no more than $75, will know for sure next month. (I just cancelled the insurance on the van this week.)

-Storage: I had no choice but to get a storage unit, but luckily was able to get one here on property so the kids have access to their bikes and it’s easy for me to store stuff that we use every once in a while without it being prohibitive to get to it.  The twins are actually riding their bikes to work almost daily so I’m glad this worked out.

-Cell Phone: This bill is still higher than I’d like.  I’m working on getting the business discount and still wavering on dropping my ipad coverage.  I really do use it…but so this may be a change that happens this month.

-Car Expenses: I left this category as is.  Even though I know I am going to spend WAY less on gas now.  With it being an older car, I imagine there will be more maintenance required.  (Had to pull the hazard light button out with a knife yesterday.)  And if it’s not used, well, it can be savings towards my new to me car down the line, right?

-Kids: I used to have this broken up into spending monies, activities and education, but I’ve decided to lump it together because every month is different.  I really only pay education expenses three times a year for our homeschool co op (Sept and Jan) and when I pick out curriculum for the next year (May.) And with the twins working now, they don’t get as much money from me.  So I lowered the amount a bit and lumped it in.  Any not used is rolled into the next month as it will all be spent.

-Emergency Fund: Now that I don’t have my part time job funding this account, I’ve decided to add a small amount to my monthly budget to make sure it continues to grow.

Now for my income…my steady income is down due to the loss of child support monies for the time being. (For those that were following that, he has caught up on car payments, but no kid money to date.)  As you know, my monthly income from work (<=link to my “what I do” post on my personal blog) fluctuates.  I did however get a bump in my adoption subsidy payment of $40 per month – woohoo!  (This is state or federal, I’m not sure which, amount, I was surprised when it went up, but grateful.)

For budgeting, I decided to only count on the monies that are steady every month.  (Like Ashley’s husband, I have super good months too, and thankfully have never gone below this number in the past 6 years now.)  So here is where we are at on a typical month:

Wow, I really like that site!  $1,400 extra towards debt every month…and on a good month for work and/or when I get some child support…that number will only go up!

Next up…the Plan!