Budget #3

Income: $3,120

4 walls:
Mortgage: $615
2 Cell phones: $110
Total Utilities: $113
Home/auto/life insurance: $143

Spending:
Grocerys: $400
Eating out: $100
Gas/oil: $300
Clothing: $50
Blow: $200

Debt: New Bal./Starting Bal.
Car: $202.15 ($6,407.23/6757.46)
Citi Card: $130 (6,811.79/8,278.63)
US Bank: $110 (9,880.50/10,210.50)

Left over: $646.00
$400 will go to the Citi Card
$246 will go into a sinking fund for car/house/etc. repairs as we already know the car will need tires on it this fall, new struts (or something like that.. that's "man speak" to me) and who knows what else.

Wade's moved to the night shift and has gotten the raise that comes with it. I'm not sure what it's going to change our income to yet but it will help a lot to make this go faster. They're trying to find a way to end the overtime at work, but for now we're grabing it for all it's worth.

Oh, and our garden is going to help with this too! We are going to have food coming out of our ears! Next post :)

I'm baaaaack!

I've finally got my computer back! Back in May my hard drive crashed. On my brand new computer. Thank you Walmart, for strengthining my resolve to never shop there again. (Dell computer manufactured for WM.. not the same as a regular Dell computer!)
My brother in law got it all fixed up for me though, so it's back now! I'm back.

So what's been going on....

Barrett turned 6 months old.. (and then 7...) Pardon my bias, but I do believe he's the cutest little boy ever <3

He's come a long ways and looks quite a bit different than he did 7 months ago!

(Don't know if I ever showed these on here...)

Then, there's Jessi Bear.

She decided she was going to go off to Grammy & Papa's. For a week and 5 days. Hmmm.
Then she decided she was so excited to be there, she didn't want to kiss or hug me goodbye.


But me, being the mean old Mommy I am, I made her.

So she gave in.

For a second.

She had tons of fun but by the time she met up with us at Wade's parents, she was ready to go HOME!

And speaking of being at Jack & Ruths, Barrett had lots of fun loving on Memaw..

We had s'mores.. twice!

And we went jet skiing and Jessi thought that was grand fun!


Barrett just got his first hair cut!! It doesn't show much here, but it was getting a little shaggy!
Before:

After: (I cut it ;) )



And that's all for now folks!

*Oh, and I know that most of you have already seen these pictures, either on mom's blog or on facebook but whatever :) Some day I'll have pictures to share on here alone.

There's something about Jessi...

There's something about Jessi. We're not quite sure what it is.

She can tell you which place is Applebees, Wendy's, Arby's, McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Taco bell, Chili's, and the list goes on and on. (Now, this makes us sound like we eat out a lot.. we really don't.)
I think that it's the fact that she's really good at memorizing. She knows pretty much all her books by heart and can read them right along with you.

But about 2 months ago now, I put a shirt on Barrett. The shirt said "Cowboy" and had nothing else on it.. just a black shirt that had the writing in white. (Actually, it's the shirt he's wearing in the "Sophie" pictures) It was the first time he wore it and we never said anything about what it said. We went to meeting that night and as soon as meeting was over Jessi told everybody: "Look! Barrett's a cowboy!"

Yesterday I was on Target's website and she came and sat on my lap.. and said "Target, Pay less!" Sure enough, on the page I was on, in bigger letters it said "Target.... Pay less.

(I thought this was a good chance to share these pictures of Jessi on here too, since I never did before! They were taken back on New Years Eve by my sister, Lynisha)

Here we go, Budget #1

So, with our tax return money, we set aside our $1,000 emergency fund, paid off our stove ($577), our computer, ($600), other random stuff ($244), sent $800 to the Citi card, and set aside money for our trip down to NE, which hopefully we won't use all of!
Here's the budget we worked out:

Total Income: $2,930 (Not including Wade's overtime)

Monthly payments:
Mortgage: $615
2 cell phones: $113
Total utilities: $270 (It varies, so this is based off last months bill.. it should be lower since it's nicer out now.)
Home, auto (2 cars) and life insurance: $150

Spending's:
Grocery's: $400
Eating out: $50 *Not including trip, money set aside for that already.
Gas & oil: $240 *Not including trip, same as above.
Clothing: $40
BOLW/gifts: $375 (It was suggested to keep this high for now to cover anything we go over in, like grocery's, since we're still figuring out our budget)

Debt:
Car: $202.15 ($6,757.46)
Citi card: $120 ($7,478.63)
US Bank: $110 ($10,210.50)

Left over: $244.49.49 to add to debt payment.

Next step is to get all our spending money in cash to use to hopefully prevent overspending!

Barrett Loves Sophie

Meet Sophie, She's Barrett's new friend. He loves her and I do too!
Sophie is made out of all-natural rubber and her paint is food paint. She's the perfect size for B to get his hands in and keep a hold of her. She's awesome for teething because he can just shove whichever part happens to be the closest into his mouth. He also loves that she gives him a little squeak once in a while.

"Mom...

How am I supposed to play with her when I need my hands to hold myself up?"

Yummm!

Thumb or Sophie?

Sophie wins!

I've got my eye on you!

Sophie's pretty nice to cuddle with too.

Mmmm, A rump roast!

Leg's pretty good!

Oh yeah, that's the stuff!

Getting a makeover

We're getting a makeover. That's right, we're getting nipped & tucked. Going under the knife.
It will take a while to recover, but we know it will be worth it. After, the wrinkles will be gone. The excess flab will be gone. The assets will be bigger. That's right, I said it.

You've probably heard of the type of makeover we're going for. It's called the Total Money Makeover. (The Dave Ramsey plan)
Every month I'm going to write the previous months spending & etc. on here. I'm also going to put down our months budget.
My reasoning for sharing this is that it will help me take account for what we spend.
If you don't want to read it, don't. ;)

So here's where we're starting at.
We have 561.00 in our emergency fund so far. (561./1,000) As soon as our federal tax return is deposited, we'll have it finished.
We have $8,278.63 on credit card #1
and $10,210.50 on credit card #2
CC #1 just had $3,000 added to it because we sold our pickup 2 weeks ago and that was the remainder of the loan. BUT, selling the pickup frees up $500 a month for us to send to the credit card's.
So that's $18,489.13 in debt. (Excluding the house.)

Since our income isn't the exact same every month we're going to use the previous months income to make our budget for the next month. (So for May's budget, we'll use all the money we have from April, which will be plenty from the tax return. June's budget will be made from May's income.)

Taking that $500 from the pickup payment and putting it on top of what we were putting on the credit cards, the calculator says they will be paid off June 2012. 2 years and 1 month. That's a LOT better than living paycheck to paycheck forever. And that's not counting any overtime money. (That will be added each month depending on how much it is. My budget is written off Wade working a 40 hr. week, but right now they're working around 15 hours of overtime. Plus, I should be having an extra $50/wk coming in in the summer with my pt. daycare girl coming ft.)

Now, I'm not sure whats going to happen with our vehicle situation. Right now since we sold the pickup, we have one car that we own. It's a little '99 Saturn with 140,000 miles on it. So we'll see!

At the end of the month, I'll write out my budget for the next month.

And now I have to do it, right?

Baby Bear

At the park (In an Ergo)


Sleeping in the sun






Just a few pictures of the Baby Bear :)