Makeover Update

I figured I should write a short little update on how our money makeover is going. First, of all, the cash budget system is working really well. The thing that has helped us do the best job on it is that I set it up every two weeks (with each paycheck) because then I'm able to make sure we get all the bills paid for before figuring out what we have left to spend on our daily living expenses. Other times that we've tried it we ended up taking the whole month's worth out at a time, but then the paycheck didn't always cover everything else we had to pay for, so it just got stressful and confusing. It's also a little harder to predict my husband's exact income because he's paid an hourly wage, so if he works overtime, does training or anything at all changes in his schedule his check varies too. So, as of now, every two weeks is working much better for us.

The other thing I like about the cash budget is that I feel more in control of the situation. I know how much I can spend, there is a boundary set so all I need to do is stay within it. I'm good at "following the rules" kind of things, so this works for me! :) It has been challenging at times, mainly because it's hard to say no to things we want, when we want them, but that's all part of the process. Some sacrificing has to happen in order to get the result we want.

We did make a large payment on our smallest loan this month, which I blogged about previously. That has given us a good energy boost to keep things moving along. When I figured out the % of our income going to each category today, the way Dave Ramsey does it, we paid 43% of our paycheck this week to debt. Which is awful and exciting at the same time. First it's horrible, because that means we're only living on a little over 50% of our income. How depressing to know we could have that much  more going toward things we actually want it to go toward! On the other hand, it means we're doing the best we can to get out of debt as fast as possible too. So, that's exciting!