Pay: $480
Step 1: 10% Tithe $48
Step 2: Bills/Debts $300
Step 3: 50% Necessities $66
Step 4: 30% Savings $39
Step 5: 20% Fun $26
TOTAL: $479.xx
What are necessities, you might ask? Gas and food! Those are my two biggest things I spend money on! Now, in a way, this is still itemizing somewhat but it gives me some flexibility. For those of you who don't know, I do live with my grandmother rent free. It was a mutual decision that would help both of us. She's older and needs help with things around the house and I'm trying to finish school. It's also really strengthened our relationship. The beginning was horrid but it's been much better! :) Back to the budget... I'm not sure how well this system will work for a couple of reasons... I already "technically" have savings built into the $300 I contribute to my auto-paid-bills account at a separate bank(yes, my emergency fund sits in that account as well). I never see that money, I already know that that money is automatically deposited in there and I have enough of a cushion in it that if something were to go wrong like my direct deposit messing up, that I would be okay until I could get to the bank to deposit a check or whatever. I look at that account every Saturday to ensure that the right portion of my check deposited. Otherwise, that's it. I know all of my bills' due dates and which ones get paid which week and I never worry about late fees. It's great! I also over-contribute to that account just for my peace of mind. The other reason I'm not sure the 50/30/20 thing will work all the time is because I am a per diem employee, I'm not guaranteed 40 hours of work every week. Today is currently Friday and I'm working 16 hours today and tomorrow for a total of 32 in two days and something like 44 for the week but I won't always get that lucky. Over Spring Break(next week), I'm working something like 68 hours that week! Or I'm scheduled to, anyway. I may not get all of those hours. So for those really high paying weeks, I don't want to over-contribute to my "fun" budget when I could be paying off more debt or putting more toward saving for school so I can work less during the fall semester. Make sense?
Obviously, I'm super long winded(type-ed??). I could talk and type for hours! I love words. I'm a logophile. Yes, that's a word. Look it up. ;)
If this system winds up working, I will just post the budget, my Baby Steps progress, and a little snippet each week to keep y'all updated. If someone new comes along and they don't know what the 50/30/20 Rule is, I'll just link them back to this post so I don't have to type as much and y'all don't have to read the same things each week! :)
As of today, my current Baby Step is: Baby Step #1 - $817 ($183 until Baby Step #1 is funded)
Current Debt Totals:
10gym(collections)($290) $290
AT&T($879) $500
SVRH(collections)($700) $700
Mom($675) $700
Navient #1($2,750) $1,103
Navient #2($2,750) $2,767
Car Loan($11,208) $8,676
TOTAL:
DISCLAIMER: I hadn't actually figured out how much I've paid off in the past year and some change. Holy smokes!! That's A LOT! That's $5,355 in just over a year. That's not bad for someone who wasn't totally on board with DR! Woohoo!
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