In conjunction with the Living on Less Than $28,000 A Year series, I will be sharing periodic Financial Updates. I won’t always give specific numbers, but I thought it might be helpful to have a little window into the day-to-day decision making process we go through.
The Paycheck
This past week my husband’s paycheck was direct deposited into our main account as usual. This was a good week for us: in addition to his regular paycheck, we had money from his second job, a bonus he received at work and some money left in our account because we didn’t need all of the gas money last week.
During my Friday pay day appointment, I left $80 in the account for our gas this week, $100 for groceries, $30 for some clothing my daughter needed as well as a $20 “cushion”.
[It’s not much of a cushion, but as I have mentioned before, if I see money in the account, I will spend it on something. Keeping most of our money in an account designated for bills and irregular/unexpected expenses helps us to spend less and save more. If you tend to spend money using your debit card without keeping track of it, you will need a much bigger cushion than we have.]
I transferred the rest of the money to our second account as follows (you can read more about how we use our second account here):
category- weekly deposit amount (monthly amt.)
rent $250 ($1000/mo.)
utilities $75 ($300/mo.)
car ins. $14 ($54/mo.)
life ins. $15 ($60/mo.) $153 due 4/11
car repair $130 ($100 when available)
clothing $0 ($20 when available)
medical $20 ($40 when available)
Extra Money
Thanks to the above-mentioned additional money and the fact that we received an “extra” paycheck in March (my husband is paid every Friday and there were five Fridays in March), we were able to add extra money to our car repair category and our savings account (we are saving to pay cash for another vehicle). If we had comparable months for the rest of the year, we would be making above the $28,000/year mark, but slow months are inevitable it seems.
If we did not have a second account with specific categories for items that are due now and in the future, as well as a specific goal to save for car, all of that extra money would have been spent little by little and we would never have known where it went.
Unplanned Spending
We are certainly not perfect and had some unplanned spending this past week. We visited with a friend and decided to spend money eating out rather than cutting our time short to return home and eat dinner. That $15.00 (there were just four of us) came out of our “cushion” so we didn’t have to transfer any money from the second account to cover it.
This past weekend after payday, I went shopping for some clothing my 11 year old needed. While we were there, we found several clothing items on clearance. I ended up spending $70 on clothing for two of my girls instead of the planned $30. We only had $30 in the clothing account, so that money has to be transferred out of another category in the second account for now.
Hopefully, seeing the specifics is helpful to those of you who are new to budgeting and keeping track of your finances. If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment (someone else probably has the same question, but they’re too shy to ask. 🙂 ).
I just wanted to say thankyou, my husband and I have been trying to live on less, I have kept trying to cut on groceries but I was still spending around $125 to $150. I am changing the way I eat and cook, I always cooked more then we could eat and ended up throwing so much out. Seeing your menu plans have help, this week I only spent $99.50 and so far I have not had to go get anything else. thankyou, you are a huge encouragement.
Great job Angi!
Thank you so much, Kimberlee, for being so transparent and sharing this personal information! It is so inspirational to me, and all of your readers!!
Thanks Audra. 🙂
Personal question: are some fo your utilities included in your rent (it seems high) and then $300 seems like a small amout for gas, water, and electricty, etc.
Thank you for sharing so many details! It is nice to see someone being successful and how they do it. You are an inspiration.
The rent for our area is very high. A normal 3 bedroom apartment is $1200-$1500 and a 3 bedroom house is $1300-$1500. We got a deal on the condo we are currently in. The electricity is higher for the summer because of the air conditioning, so we will be putting more into the account at that time. Our water bill averages $15 a month which is very low compared to what we have paid elsewhere, so that helps.
I love your site! Thank you for posting such personal information! It is very helpful! I’m only in my young 20’s and make enough money to live a more “elaborate” lifestyle but i love couponing, saving, and being frugal! (i call it frugal and fabulous) I plan to keep on living on less when i have a family and i enjoy getting ideas for the future from you! Thank you!
I just started following your site. Thank you for the insight to living on less. Although I am single with no kids your tips can help me cut my grocery bill. I am eager to learn even more ways to save more and “cut less”. So far I have gotten bored with my menu choices and sometimes just snack around. I don’t like to do that because I tend to wake up in the middle of the night hungry. So keep the interesting meal plans coming!
Thanks!
It is good that you maintain such a good budget on your groceries. Wish the rest of us could do as good as you do. Know your husband must be proud of how you make it all work.
Mary Ann, he is positively the most patient and loving man and my biggest fan. 🙂
Yes! Thanks for taking the time to do this and sharing it with all of us.
Can you share where you shopped and what you got? I’ve got four children tha tneed to be clothed as well. Last month I ended up getting quite a few items for my boys at Old Navy, using their low price items and a $10 off of $50. My girls are getting older and like to chose for themselves, and we usually scour clearance racks and I outfitted both of them for about $120 OOP (using a great clearance sale at Aerpostale, a $25 macy’s gift card, etc). Now since mostly everyone is taken care of for the upcoming season, I’m trying to plan for next season by putting money away now. Thanks for the post!
Sounds like you got some great deals! We actually shopped at Walmart. I had a limited amount of time so I went straight for the store in my area that I thought would have the cheapest prices. (It is often cheaper to shop at the mall and use coupons, but the mall is 30 minutes away for us.)
My 11 year old needed a bathing suit and is in teen sizes now, so we ended up spending the bulk of the money on her suit ($32). I hated to spend that much but it was the only suit that fit her and looked good. The rest of the money went for an undershirt, 2 light weight jackets, a cover up, swim shorts for another daughter’s suit. Not the most dramatic savings ever, but great prices for the time and effort I put into it. 🙂
Wow! $32 for a swimsuit? So sorry. We recently bought my 11 year old daughter a Speedo swimsuit for $12.99 at Costco. I get a free membership through an employee family member (very thankful for that). I also noticed that Academy Sports has cute swimsuits for her in the same price range. Do you have a TJMaxx or Ross or Marshalls? They usually have good prices on swimsuits. I buy a lot of my teenaged boys clothes at Platos Closet (re-sale for name brands).
We found a great suit last year at Ross, but this year my daughter needed separate pieces to make the suit work. She is very tall and the one piece suits that were long enough were too baggy on her. We purchased a tankini and skirt that look good on her and cover up a lot (if you know what I mean). I think that helping her feel comfortable and good about wearing the suit is worth the extra money, especially in these pre-teen years. 🙂
I agree! Just trying to help. I have to spend lots of money on shoes for my teen boys because their feet are so big. They are so expensive, even with a coupon. But, I buy all my clothing and most of my shoes at Goodwill so hopefully it balances out. I had to learn to accept the big pricetag on my sons shoes a while back and do the best we can. God bless you. Thanks for all you do!
My sister has the same issue with my nephew. She has to spend close to $100 to get shoes that work for him–ouch!
I agree. I have a pre-teen and teen. I would rather pay a little more money for a bathing suit that fits well for my children’s sake as well as for modesty’s sake. I was some what surprised when my daughter’s got older and how more “expensive” bathing suits are but that is the price of a suitable bathing suit. It the suit is too big then it stretches out and does not fit well.
I do a lot of shopping for my son at the About Kids Consignment sales, It is a huge sale at a warehouse every 2 months or so. But he is 18 months. I also got a great deal a few weeks ago, 3 trash bags of all season 2T clothes for $40 on a local Buy-Sell-Trade Facebook page. Since we live in CO, there were snowsuits, to shorts! And he is set for the next year! I was happy with that purchase. Thanks for sharing all your tips!
I usually can get the bulk of the clothing my kids need at a $2 a bag sale twice a year rummage sale a church in our town puts on, or when we are at the next town over for a dr’s appt or something I will stop at the Catholic Charities thrift store and get clothes for anywhere from 50 cents to $1. Now I just went to the church rummage sale and for $2 got my almost 10 year old 3 pairs of jeans, 3 shirts, 1 pair of shorts, and a jacket. Luckily they were all lilke new and while we aren’t picky about brands for the name, I was happen the jeans were of a better brand when it comes to quality. For out new baby coming in July, I was able to get a whole sack full of good quality sleepers and onezies for $2 as well. However, it is things like swimsuits, underwear, shoes, and socks that we don’t buy use that seem to add up. Now I’ve thankfully found underwear and socks on clearance at Walmart and I will buy the next size up and so on. Swimsuits I used to be lucky and find one for my oldest at the year end clearance but that hasn’t happen for a few years…so last year before going to opening pool day (which happened to be a free admission day) we stopped at Walmart and spent $25 on her suit and $25 on replacing my 8 year old suit. Well thank goodness her suit will still fit this year, and depending on how much swimming I am going to do before July I may or may not have to get a maternity suit. Anyway, it just seems easy to get some stuff at bag sales and the cheaper thrift stores, but other things you just have to buy new. If I mis them on clearance it just seems hard to find anything cheap, especially since we don’t have the larger stores in our area.
We have been shopping for clothing, and really anything else, at Kmart – prices are very affordable and we have a rewards card that gives us between 1-10% back on purchases. This isn’t a credit card – it is simply a shoppers card. Last year we got back about $100 over the course of the year. I count that extra savings off the already sale prices, and we feel we did really well. We also wound up with about $70 of that in February *after our Christmas layaway* and at a time when we really needed some items and had no money! We got what we needed and had some to spare =)
Thanks so much for these posts! It is so helpful when you break down the practicalities like this. My husband and I are new to budgeting and I find your blog SO helpful! Thanks!
I’m so glad Mary Kate.
Do you keep all of your categories on a spreadsheet or is there anything you keep in envelopes?
I sometimes withdraw the grocery money and have it in an envelope. In the past I tried using cash in envelopes, but I found that I just spent the money because I had access to it. It does work for some people though.
Wow you weren’t kidding about high housing prices! We have a modest, older, smaller house but our mortgage is only 450/mo, in the midwest.