Tell All Tuesday ~ April Wrapup
With the furnace purchase looming on the horizon, it is time to get all of our ducks in order and look at how last month went. Overall, it was a pretty okay month, but that was due to my increasing several sources of income more than spending less money. In fact, I spent more money on both gasoline and food than I had in any previous month over the past year, and with my inlaws visiting for a week, we had a few miscellaneous expenses creep up. However, my inlaws bought my spouse both a new drill and a spreader for the yard, so I think we came ahead on that deal. 
So in summary for last month:
- We brought in $922.69 more than we spent.
- Of that, $316.45 needs to be carried forward for irregular budgeted expenses
- Which means we have $606.24 as a surplus
However, by my calculation of the extra income I brought in, we should have $880.26 as “surplus” left to apply to our student loan (or in this case, the furnace), so in fact, we overspent by ~$280. This can be traced back in our budget to increased medical expenses (I had two doctors visits and a CT scan, all of which had copays that totaled $90), gasoline (with the new taekwondo position we drive more, and our gas increased by almost $100) and groceries and utilities were also a bit over budget. I’ve adjusted the gasoline budget upwards by taking some money from my taekwondo pay and classifying it for gasoline, and hopefully the other expenses I can get a little more under control this month. We were successful though in spending less than we earned. 
The $606.24 is earmarked for the furnace, which added to the extra paycheck and the stimulus payment, brings us to $3406.24. Another $300 will come from funds earmarked in May for student loan payoff, and that will cover the entire $3700 cost. And we’ll have an energy star rated furnace. Hurrah!
As for going forward, since I have a number of medical expenses that will come in soon, we will be taking any extra income and evenly splitting it between the student loan payoff fund and our emergency fund until the emergency fund is $2000. My yearly deductible for my health insurance is $1000, so saving an additional $1000 in our emergency fund at this point, until we know exactly what the different procedures will cost us, seems like the prudent thing to do.
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May 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
That’s really cool how well you’re planning your finances for your future medical bills. Good idea to split the money between the student loan and the emergency fund!
May 6th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
We are having lots of medical stuff crop up over the next few months as well (at least we know ahead of time) and I was just thinking that I need to set aside a portion of our pay to cover the stuff. I should say a larger portion of our pay. It is always nice to have a plan.