What in the world happened to our family budget updates? Remember I used to be sharing these things every month? Yeah, sorry about that!
The complete honest truth is that I just forgot. Going forward, I don’t plan to share these every single month, but you are more likely to see a scenario of me sharing maybe every other month. Unless something important comes along, then I will share more frequent.
Why do we share our family budget?
I personally find it very motivating to learn about other family budgets and what they do to manage them. Learning about their tricks on how to make their pennies stretch and what they do when obstacles come up.
One problem I have seen though, is that a lot of articles out there are families that live where the cost of living is a lot less then where we live. Making their budget a lot less realistic for us to follow.
I want to show you guys that living on one income is completely doable, even if you live in an area where the cost of living is high. Our family lives in San Diego, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. But we are finding ways to make it work on one income and I want to help you do the same thing!
A Major Set Back
You can read here on our plans to pay off our debt and buy a house within 24 months. We were doing so great… until March 2016 came around.
I will go more into the details in a later article, but in a nutshell, my husband had a very serious infection in his foot, that he ended up needing surgery. This not only took my husband out of work for three weeks, but also restrained him from doing overtime for the last three months.
His overtime is what we were using to pay off our debt. So we haven’t made any additional payments past since February 2016.
Side note: He is doing much better now! In fact, as of last night he returned to full duty and is now eligible for overtime again. Yay!
We have seen many miracles through this entire process and have been extremely blessed. We have learned so many things throughout this trial and are on our way to recovery!
With his health under control, we are now working our way back on track to debt freedom and buying our first home!
Where we sit with our debt
I’m not sure I have ever given you guys an exact number of how much debt we started with or where we sit now. After discussing it over with my husband we have decided to be completely open about this process.
Our hope is to motivate others to do the same thing. Work hard to get out of debt now, so you can build the life you dream of!
Here are the numbers:
Beginning debt:
Student loans: $12,500
Car loan: $8,000
Current debt as of May 2016:
Student loans: $7,328
Car loan: $2,878
Goal savings for house: $25,000 ($10k down payment, $10k updates, $5k furniture)
Current savings for house: $0
Our plan is to first get completely out of debt and then use all of our freed up cash to start putting large amounts into savings for to purchase our first home.
One Income Family Budget Breakdown
You guys let me know if you would like to see a more detailed breakdown of our budget. But for now I am going to give an overview.
Total Monthly Expenses: $3,912
Adjusted Monthly Expenses After Surgery: $3,687
May 2016 Income: $3,760
You can see that our total monthly expenses are higher then our income. What we have had to do since the hubby has been on light duty at work, is to cut back on any unnecessary expenses.
Areas that we have temporarily cut out of our budget each month are these:
Extra debt payments $500
Fun budget $100
Christmas fund $50
Gift fund $20
Clothing fund $40
Kids extra circular fund $120
Unexpected Expenses
My husbands stay in the hospital and multiple weekly visits with an in-home nurse have actually proven to be the smallest unexpected expense we have come across over the past few months.
Our kids have been on a continual cycle of sharing sicknesses, like strep throat, that require a doctor’s visit and prescription. With three kids consistently in and out of the doctor’s office, those expenses can add up quickly.
Luckily we did have a good amount of cash we had set aside specifically for medical and dental. But we have run that well dry. Once the hubby gets back on his feet at work, we will have to build up this savings again.
Here is a breakdown of the unexpected costs we have come across in the past few months. This is not normal for us. Our unexpected expenses are usually way less than $100!
Husband medical bills $100
Kids sick bills and prescriptions $250
Dental work for me $450 (due next month but we set the money aside in anticipation for the bill)
AAA renewal $75 (forgot about this annual bill)
Motorcycle insurance $25 (new bill)
We have found ways to cut our budget (see budget cuts above) in order to compensate for these unexpected expenses.
So there you have it. It has been a rough couple months for our finances. But the good news is that we have been able to make it work without too much stress!
Sure we are bummed that we have had this setback. But it’s not the end of the world and we are working our way back on top!
One of my favorite sayings of all time is, “Choose to be happy.” And that is exactly what we are doing.
Hopefully in our next family budget update I will have some more positive numbers to report.
Let me know if you guys have any questions on how we handle our one income family budget or if you have any questions on how to set up your own!
Here is an article on how to start a budget if you are in the market to start one, this will help!
Talk to you guys soon! Xoxo
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