January 2008 - Review
Oh Boy, January was not a pretty month. We started the month with deficit of $3,100, which is pretty much what we spend monthly. I was able to pull in some extra income here and there, but not enough to cover us. Instead, we threw some cash from savings in the account just as a buffer while we work on adjusting for the deficit (it has to be repaid, at some point soon). We knew we were hurting, but did that help us get ahead this month? Not at all.
Income: Since we budget using the previous month’s income and factor in the previous month’s deficit/surplus — we only had $150 available for January. Throwing in some savings as a buffer helped a little bit, but we still ended up $3,000 short for February (add another $2,000 to that for paying back savings). There were a couple expenses in January that made this a painful month — including two trips that the partner and I took separately even though we knew we couldn’t afford it (but, they are also trips that we take annually, so we should have planned better ahead of time).
Unexpected January Expenses:
- Car Repair: $790 bought me a new clutch and new front rotors and breaks.
- Travel: $170 for a women’s retreat I needed to attend
- Medical: $1,050 in orthodontic care (this was planned, but the reimbursement didn’t come through till Feb.)
- Gasoline: $500, about $200 more than last month, $100 more than usual.
- Personal Spending: $70, this was about $50 more than usual, but the partner also traveled in January.
This extra spending added about $2,300 more than our usual spending. On a month where we are still in the hole $3,000, that really hurts.
Sigh, I am still not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel right now. January was a 3 paycheck month, but still leaves February with less than our mortgage payment available to spend. I’m pulling in as much extra work as I can get, but it won’t cover us. The FSA will help some, but not enough. This is getting pretty frustrating because I’m out of places to cut corners. Basically, the only real solution I see is for the partner to liquidate another large machine, but I doubt that will happen (nor am I actually going to suggest that to him). I don’t think I can make up this shortfall because we’re counting pennies as it is.
Perhaps, it’s time to take a better look at our spending and see if we’re not being as honest with ourselves as we should be. February should be better because neither of us are taking any trips (which we knew we couldn’t afford, but took anyways), but I don’t think it’s going to be enough to get us by, much less cover the $1,500 we now owe our savings account (the money was transferred to cover the car repairs, a reasonable emergency fund use, but not to fix the problem - instead, it’s just giving our account a little more buffer since it’s much lower than it’s been for a year or so).