I am excited to review our budget numbers over the past few months. We are making steady progress. I hope to continue this progress by becoming even more accountable for financial stuff in the next few weeks. I am always afraid to use real numbers but at this point, I have come to a conclusion that unless you are going to contribute to our financial situation then you can’t have an opinion. I also hope that real numbers will encourage someone else.  In the same line, I am going to share my current short-term and long-term goals. These are specific items that I will need to pay over in addition to our regular budget. I will be using any savings in our budget to help cover our additional expenses. At work we are in the process of switching to a new computer system. Our latest memo mentioned mandatory overtime, so currently I am working around 5 extra hours a week to help with these expenses.

Looking back over the last 3 months, I have reduced our Grocery budget to $505 a month. I have been playing with the idea of changing this amount to $500 a month and this is a strong encouragement to do so. We have been spending  exactly $400 a month between gas and the small auto repairs that have been popping up. I am comfortable with this number because in the next several month we have tags, taxes and inspections due on all three vehicles so even if gas prices drop a bit this money will still be needed.   Another success it that we have reduced dining out from over $450 in January to $180 in March. This continues to be an area we need to reduce but so far so good. Finally a big failure is in the purchasing of clothing, we have spent over $1000 on clothes in the past three months, this averages to $365 a month. I currently budget $100 a month.  My goal is to shrink this average during April, May, June and July because we have already purchased all the needed clothing for the summer.  I may need to purchase a couple of new items for school in August but hopefully the next 3 or 4 months will have little to no clothing purchases.

Goal time… This is in additional to our regular budget.

Short term goals:  These need to be met in April. This is also the order I will place money.                            1. Pay the additional $300 for my crown. Currently I have $100 saved and will use my Medflex to cover the remaining after my $400.
2.  $220 to cover a business expense for Matt.
3.  $100 in our Emergency Fund to stay on track for the year.
4. $100 for ten bags of rubber mulch for the playground.  This goal can actually be pushed to May if need be.

Long Term Goals: These are for the next 6 months
1. $400 pool dues
2.  $2000 to repair our septic system- I have no clue of the cost for this but this is a save range. I will be counting our Emergency Fund in this amount for the time being because if it cost less than anything left will stay in this fund.
3.  $1000  to replace the floor in our Living room.