Don't Mess with Me, Ugly Kermit

Every journey starts with a plan.  In our case, the plan was a monthly budget.

Have you ever dissected where exactly all the money goes in a year? It will absolutely separate you from the wimpy kids who fainted in Biology class.

It took me more than 2 hours to create categories for our spending.  This is what I came up with: mortgage, groceries, utilities, savings, cell phone, Kids, dining out, medical, charity, household, clothing, ATM, dog, insurance, auto and gas. 

Household was one ugly amphibian!  It was shocking to see how much we spent at Walmart.  Ocean State Job Lot and Dicks Sports were equally awful. But the one that truly grossed me out was the local convenience store at the top of the hill.  More than $200 per month on what I can only assume is beer wine, candy, lottery tickets, and cigarettes.

Staring at me, with its beady glassed over eyes, were the exact reasons we never have money left at the end of the month.

So I slapped that Budget Frog on the lab table and grabbed my scaple.  Don't mess with me, ugly Kermit.

I sliced and diced the budget for another two hours.  Some categories were wicked easy to snip a leg off.  If you are on a budget, everyone knows going out to dinner is pretty much a formaldehyde dream.  Others were tricky.  Do we cancel the cell phones to save $242 per month and go back to the telegraph?  How much can we really cut from the grocery bill when the kids grow an inch each week?

In the end, with hard line determination, I created a purposeful spending plan that allowed $3000 savings each month. Now that's a frog song. Croak.  What are we going to do with all Les Grenouilles Jambes?

 

My two cents.  Know what you spend each month.  If you are embarrassed at any amount, that should be the first thing to go.

Short Christmas Lists Force New Family Budget

We are going on a budget. We are going on a strict Family Budget.

It’s been brewing for a few months.  It was bound to happen.  The holidays, American’s Mecca of Overspending, was the catalyst.

When Beau-Hunkly and I sat down to discuss Christmas spending last month, I was upset not that there was not enough money, but that the wish lists of Son I and Son II were too small.  Together, their Christmas lists added up to no more than $600 total. 

“We need to spend more on the kids,” I said to my Beau-Hunkly.  He didn’t comment.  I tried again.

“It won’t seem like Christmas, even if we buy every single gift on these lists.  There will not be enough present to fill the tree.  The lists are too small.  The kids are going to have to try harder,” I told him.

Nothing.   So I stared right back at my husband until he drew a big breath and grabbed my hands.   “Stop, “ he said quietly.  “This is all they want.  Are we asking them to want more?”

And that’s when we started really talking.

We started talking about living within our means.  About how much money we make and how much money we spend and how outrageous it is to always buy a bunch of stuff only to realize that we can’t put our kids through college.  Talking about how we don’t want our kids growing up getting everything they want.  Talking about how crazy it is to work so hard just to buy more stuff.

We formed a plan.  Not like “we sit down with a calculator and together form a plan."  More like, "Caroline sit down with a calculator and formulate a budget and Beau-Hunkly promises to follow the plan and encourage the children."

And then we went Christmas shopping.  And we didn't buy everything on the list. That entire Christmas came out of our checking account and we knew we weren't going to have a January hangover of credit card bills.

In the end, Christmas was a success.  This budget is going to be a success.