Shoe Strings : ONLY

We aren't broke broke. We are cant-afford-to-take-a-vacation broke. We have food on our table and a roof over our heads. We have clothes on our back and a borrowed washing machine to wash it in.

I joked with a coworker saying "We're on a shoe string budget, meaning, i cant afford to get the shoes, just the shoe strings"

Its difficult trying to work with a budget because you know that you cant "splurge" on much. We have done very well trying to cut down on unnecessary expenditures. We have reduced the number of times we go out to eat or get take out. I try to keep the fridge stocked with food so we can eliminate the "There's nothing in the fridge" thoughts, that have so easily led us to go out to eat. No one said budgeting would be easy, but if they did, it was most likely because they had a large budget. With Juj working less, we became more aware of what, how, where we are droppin' the dough.

I've been doing some research and according to many budgeting websites and tools your budget should looks a bit like this:

Housing- 25-30%

Food-15%

Gas/Transportation-15%

Utilities-10%

Payments on Debt-10%

Savings-10%

Entertainment-5%

Medical-5%

Charity-5%

Clothing-5%

Now I'm not going to bore you to death with all the details of our finances, but we tend to shift around the allocated percentages.

Housing-  23%
Food-10%
               -I tend to be a very smart shopper, finds sales, stock up on BOGO (cheese freezes well) and
                since for the most part we don't consume much meat we tend to not spend too much on food.
Gas/Transportation/Ins-28%
               -This is for our car payment, insurance & gas
Utilities-12%
               - This includes household and our cell phone bill we pay for 4 lines ( juj, MIL, mom, & I)
Payments on  ALL Debt-25%
               -Oh this is high. too high, but it does include just about everything, credit cards, student loans,
                regular loans etc etc.
Savings- ~%
              - Some months are better than others, some months we are able to save 10% others 1%
Entertainment-5%
              -This is varies, we can go weekends with out spending anything, then there is times when we
               drop F-bombs when we pay our part of the tab/bill. We for sure spend 9 dollars on netflix/mo.
Medical-0%  
              - Thankfully we've got more than enough money set aside in our Flexible Spending accounts to 
                cover any medical bills our insurance doesn't cover
Charity-0%
             - Though I volunteer my time at different charity events, we give no monetary donations.
Clothing-5%
             - I can seriously say that i have not spent much out of pocket money on clothing. For example, i
               had gift card to kohls, a merch. credit, kohls cash and my employee shop day and employee
               discount. I purchased 3 tops for roughly 25 dollars. NOWHERE near the 5% that I we should be
               using.( hint hint babe!)

I know that by this time you've take out your calculator and figured out that totals 108% and taking into account that a few of our areas fluctuating, such as savings and entertainment. Well ladies and gentlemen, somehow, i make it happen. Well, we make it happen. Even though i do most of the bill paying we both try to keep within our budget. Over time things such as the debt area will go down, perhaps we'll take a leap and purchase a home, but a lot of things can throw a monkey wrench into our budgeting plans, i.e. Cookies expensive medical bills, new brakes, etc etc. Conveniently, I just got a sweet raise at work- so that's always a plus!

Overall its not difficult, it would just be a lot easier to manage if we were just given one big lump sum at the beginning of the month =-D