Review & Goals (financial)

It’s getting to be that time of year. The time of year where I look back on my finances and say, geesh, where did all the money go? I saved my receipts this year and put them into an envelope for each month. For kicks, I should go through them & just see what I’ve spent 40K on but then again, that would make me sad and depressed. We do not want a sad & depressed Jan. Trust me. I’m borderline already, no need to push me over the edge. Anyway. Last week, during some downtime at work (yeah, it’s slow), I did a little spreadsheet on Excel with my monthly expenses. I carried this around in my purse all weekend, and looked at it a few times. I’ve even made a few changes. I now have it attached to my Publix sale paper. Here’s how it reads (if I was a little more geeky like, I could post the spreadsheet RIGHT here, but I don’t know how to do that): 2009 Projection Income: $1043 x2 Income: $140.38 x 4 Bonus (average): $150 (certainly hope this improves in 2009 – the market MUST turn around) Total income: $2797.52 Fpl $350 Tmobile $125 At&t $20 (more likely $25?) Comcast $110 Food $600 (could be $280) Bugman $25 Car gas $100 Car ins $300 Water $125 Cap1 $100 (could be $420) Ae/gym $90 Blockbuser online $19 Best buy $50 Kids lunch $80 Total out: $2094.00 $703.52 remaining for savings. So, notice, I was very generous on my food ($600!) and I am going to try & bring that down to $280. Also, the FPL (electric) is probably way low on average. My bill in July, August & September is $500 and for November it was $310. So I don’t know. AT&T is more like $25. Cap1 & Best Buy are debt payments so I’m thinking if I can bring the grocery down to $280, that would give me $320 which I would be happy to add to the Cap1 payment, making that $420 a month. (Best buy is a no interest for 12 months, $500 and figured $50 a month will pay off in 10 months). Kids lunches. They both get $20 a week for either lunches, or what ever they choose to do. In return they (are suppose to) clean the house & help out where needed. Of course, if my princess continues on the path she’s on, well, that will be knocked in half. Another story for another day. And last but certainly not least, those bonuses. That $150 would be if we only did 2 closings a month (which has been the norm November & December). I would like to see that get up to 10 closing a month which would be $750. ALL of the bonus money is suppose to go into savings. My next step is to make my savings account difficult to withdraw from. As it is now, I can transfer money back & forth with a click of the mouse. Good, but no so good.