Dear hubby and I have been working on our 2010 budget. Our biggest problem is we are in our 60's and semi retired. There is not enough income to cover all the out go. Our biggest challenge is to pay our own health insurance mainly mine.
I am pleased to see so many young people working on budgets, paying off debt and building up savings. I heard all this 40 years ago but never did any of it. I just built up debt and put off saving for retirement. We lived in the moment. Now our retirement is not what someone would want.
So here we are 61 and 66 years old and working part time jobs. We have a some debt mainly a car loan of under $10,800. But each month we are struggling to keep that part time money coming in and trying to sell on eBay for extra cash. We have sold on eBay since 1998 but with economy we are making less than in the past.
We will as in the past do taxes at H R Block for the season and this will give us income, but could interfer with the other part time income and not put us ahead. Time will tell.
So for 2010 our goals are to
Make enough money every month to cover the shortage of $1200 or cut back where necessary to balance the month.
Build up a $1000 emergency fund . We will be putting $150 a month into savings to do this. Savings is very little since my life insurance bill is due end of year and we did not have all money needed.
Give at least $300 a month to the church ear marking it to the needy or Salvation Army to feed the hungry.
Put money into a traveling budget so we can go home to Minnesota to see our children in 2010. and have an end of the year trip. We were not able to travel home this year.
Budget $250 a month for groceries and personal items . Should there be any money left over it will roll to next month grocery fund so if there is a refund I want to do I can have a build up of cash.
Budget $250 a month for eating out. Should not all this money be spent it will go into savings for our emergency fund.
Once emergency fund is at $1,000 then extra money will be put on car loan to pay if off sooner.
End of season at H R Block if there is a bonus this will be put either on emergency fund or car loan.
Any extra rewards at CVS, Walgreens etc will be used for groceries or personal items.
Refund / Rebates will go into emergency fund. I am waiting $58.00 in rebates to still come.
On a personal note
I want to excercise at least 3 times a week
Lose a total of 40 pounds over the year
Declutter my home, selling excess on ebay.
Are you preparing for next years budget and goals. I would love to hear your plans.
Thanks For Stopping By... Lets Keep Saving Together ... Grace
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Never to late to start
I believe it is never to late to start over. I am the mother of 2 sons, the step mother of 2 stepsons and 1 step daughter and to overwhelming pride the grandmother of 13 fantastic grandchildren. I have been married to a great guy for almost 20 years. We have had many wonderful adventures during those 20 years. We have had our good times and our hard times.
We are now going thru another difficult time. This year has been really tough for us. My internet business is down so income is down. Then to make matters even worse our landlords raised our rent an extra $110.00 a month.
Off and on I have kept a record of grocery spending and coupon use. No sooner will I start ,then I will quit doing it on a regular basis. I find myself doing the CVS game but not following thru. I will go to grocery store and use coupons, buy store brands and sale items. But I never seen to walk out spending very little money like I hear others doing. Lately I have been surfing the web and looking at different blogs where they are sharing how they save. They have a goal to spend only $25.00 to $35.00 a week. Then to top it off they are a family of 3 or 4. How do they do it? Here it is only myself, my DH and Spooky our cat. I wonder how can they do it. In February we spent almost $250.00 on groceries and that does not include the cats' special diet food. I don't even want to get into what we spent going out to eat in February, but it more than what we spent at grocery store.
Here we are in the first week of March and my goal is to be smarter with our food money and to eat out less often.
At the end of April we will be moving to Texas from California to be nearer family. We need to start spending less now since that will be costly move.
I would love to put money in a savings account. The experts say that we should have 6 months living expense in the bank. We do not even have a savings account let alone any money in it.
Every year we try to give some of our income to a church and to a shelter to help feed the hungry. This year we gave very little, not only were times tough but we spent foolishly.
Now is the time to start over. We are moving to Texas where I will help my nephew in his business. Not only will this bring in some income to us, I hope to be an asset in growing his business on the internet. I pray our own internet business will improve.
We will be closer to Minnesota and our children and grandchildren
My goals are to spend less money every month.
Start sharing what we have with the needy.
And start a savings account.
As I start on my journey, I hope that you will join me with your prayers, your ideas and maybe even some of your goals and desires for this year
We are now going thru another difficult time. This year has been really tough for us. My internet business is down so income is down. Then to make matters even worse our landlords raised our rent an extra $110.00 a month.
Off and on I have kept a record of grocery spending and coupon use. No sooner will I start ,then I will quit doing it on a regular basis. I find myself doing the CVS game but not following thru. I will go to grocery store and use coupons, buy store brands and sale items. But I never seen to walk out spending very little money like I hear others doing. Lately I have been surfing the web and looking at different blogs where they are sharing how they save. They have a goal to spend only $25.00 to $35.00 a week. Then to top it off they are a family of 3 or 4. How do they do it? Here it is only myself, my DH and Spooky our cat. I wonder how can they do it. In February we spent almost $250.00 on groceries and that does not include the cats' special diet food. I don't even want to get into what we spent going out to eat in February, but it more than what we spent at grocery store.
Here we are in the first week of March and my goal is to be smarter with our food money and to eat out less often.
At the end of April we will be moving to Texas from California to be nearer family. We need to start spending less now since that will be costly move.
I would love to put money in a savings account. The experts say that we should have 6 months living expense in the bank. We do not even have a savings account let alone any money in it.
Every year we try to give some of our income to a church and to a shelter to help feed the hungry. This year we gave very little, not only were times tough but we spent foolishly.
Now is the time to start over. We are moving to Texas where I will help my nephew in his business. Not only will this bring in some income to us, I hope to be an asset in growing his business on the internet. I pray our own internet business will improve.
We will be closer to Minnesota and our children and grandchildren
My goals are to spend less money every month.
Start sharing what we have with the needy.
And start a savings account.
As I start on my journey, I hope that you will join me with your prayers, your ideas and maybe even some of your goals and desires for this year
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