Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Payday!
This was the paycheck I thought we would be able to save most of, for our trip next month. I did manage to save some of it, but not nearly what I’d hoped. The good news is, the Visa bill came with the airline tickets on it, and I was able to pay it off entirely, so at least that part of our trip is covered. We will still have sight-seeing expenses and food costs while we are there, and a hotel bill since our daughter rents a small room in a private home.
The Visa bill also had a few other items we had bought this month, such as recharging our pre-paid cell phones and adding a small bit to our son’s meal card to get him through the rest of the college semester.
If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll remember that even though the bank balance was negative, that was only on paper because I had held the check I had made out for our monthly church donation, which was convenient and logical, since we were out-of-town over the weekend and didn’t attend church. I’ll be sure to turn it in this Sunday.
Here’s the tally:
Carry-over balance: (negative) -111.58
Income: $1885.74 full-time paycheck
Expenses: 35.95 groceries
28.87 gasoline
233.00 power bill
126.28 homeowner’s insurance
175.00 car payment
690.51 Visa
53.28 life insurance (mine)
68.19 telephone/internet
Current balance: $363.08
I’m planning to move $350 into short-term savings for our trip, and hope to pay cash as we go. Anything left from our trip will go toward our youngest child’s fall college tuition. The bill won’t arrive until sometime this summer, but could be as high as $6500. We have filled out a FAFSA for student aid, as we do every year, but since our middle daughter is graduating this year, we can’t count on getting as much financial aid as we did while we had two undergrads in school. The preliminary estimate is always so far off base that I try to ignore it, or look at it as a worst-case scenario. Thankfully, the actual bill has always been much lower when it arrives. Still, the discrepancy makes it hard to plan ahead. Added to the mix is that Struggle, Jr. has applied for several scholarships that we are waiting to hear about, and has a few scholarships that may or may not renew, depending on how the granting entity looks at our financial situation now that we will have only one child in school.
I just realized I haven’t included this month’s gift occasions in my budgeting. In addition to Mother’s Day, we have two graduations and two birthdays in the immediate family. I guess some of that will have to come out of savings, too. This time of year has always been murder on the wallet. At least, this year, we have some savings to cover it.
What surprises did you find in your budget this month?
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