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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Our "New" Budget

For the next few months I plan on trying to keep my family on a budget of approximately $2000 a month. Some people may look at this and say "It's not possible" or maybe they are on the other end of the spectrum saying "You should already be doing this". I have two reasons for trying this: 1) pay down debt and 2) start a savings account.

Piggy and I have been together for almost 2 years... We have yet to start and keep a savings account. We had to close our last one when complications arose in my last pregnancy and I was forced to be on strict bedrest for 10 weeks. I was planning on working at least through my 36th week to help build the account for emergencies.

This is how I hope things will work out:
$500 - rent
$500 - debt
$250 - utilities (water, electricity, cable, phone, internet)
$120 - cell phone
$300 - groceries
$300 - gas and Piggys cigarettes (YUCK!)
$2000 TOTAL

Right now our take home income is well above this amount. Whatever extra we have will go directly into a savings account. I am also looking into ways to lower our costs. I have managed to get my electric bill down to $81 (I know this will go up once summer hits). I will be calling the cell phone company soon to lower our bill. We recently got a home phone so I think I can cut down drastically on our minutes.

Piggy doesn't know about this budget yet because he has been at work for the last week. Wish me luck!! ;)

1 comment:

  1. Just a thought, but if you have credit cards you might try and call them and make an offer for settlement. I actually got a call from mine offering to cut my debt in half if I could pay it out within 90 days! I was shocked and pleased.

    BTW - it was nice meeting you today!

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