Its May! Dumping Debt with Dave Ramsey - Page 9

[tricia80]

Mini Update:

BS #1 - $1000 EF Done :::

BS#2

Consolidation Loan: 4324.79/13882.08 PAID
Credit Card: /1143.31 PAID
Personal Loan (friend) /2800 PAID
Student loans - way tooo much to put here and thats the last thing on my list to pay...

[Rev1053]

Originally Posted by akichan

What's a "sinking fund?" Do you budget for that?

We dont have one but... Its basically a savings account that you save up for things for. For example... Someday DH and I are going to have to replace the roof. So we could put $100 a month into our savings account specifically for the new roof.
I guess thats the way I understood it.

Its the end of the month and I paid off a 1/5 of my SL debt! : I am so darn happy! DH's check this past week was way more then I anticipated.

For the people that budget monthly how do you have cash for the beginning of the month? DH and I pull all of our cash at the beginning of the month.. The only problem is that he got paid on Friday and that was May... so technically our checking account should be at ZERO for the beginning of June... I cant wait 2 more weeks for groceries or gas... So we are "borrowing" money from the May paycheck with the hopes that we will pay ourselves back in June. I couldnt figure out a better way of making the budget work.
Any better way to do this? Do you keep a grand in the checking account as a buffer?

[tricia80]

I just did dave's TMMO online gazelle budget software... and wow i spend 69% of my income paying the rent and my consolidation loan... wow...

i also figured out that if i make $300 more dollars a month i could pretty much double my consolidation loan payment and get rid of it faster...

interesting statistics when you actually look at it...


Yes i am rambling.. i am tired..

[Maluhia]

Originally Posted by Rev1053

So we are "borrowing" money from the May paycheck with the hopes that we will pay ourselves back in June. I couldnt figure out a better way of making the budget work.

We do this - we pay out most of our bills with the 1st paycheck then we set aside to savings, etc. from the 2nd paycheck as well as all the "cash" things for the next month.

[Rev1053]

KailuaMamatoMaya - So your last paycheck of the month always pays for next months cash expenses? I guess that makes sense now...
I dont know why we didnt think of that before.
But that means that the money that we just "borrowed" from our June paycheck will never be paid back. Booooo!

tricia80 - Over %51 of our income goes to housing! Thats depressing.

[p1gg1e]

Originally Posted by Rev1053

Its the end of the month and I paid off a 1/5 of my SL debt! : I am so darn happy! DH's check this past week was way more then I anticipated.

Congrats!!

[annethcz]

Rev- congrats on the SL!!! You're doing great!

As for your cash question, we do the same thing as the PPer. DH gets paid every two weeks, so we budget for 2 paychecks/month. The 1st paycheck pays for any bills due in the second half of the month. The 2nd paycheck pays for any bills/expenses due in the first part of the next month.

I have my June spreadsheet open right now. Income looks like this:
DH paycheck 5/22/09
DH paycheck 6/5/09
DH paycheck 6/19/09 (will be used to pay for July expenses)

Regular expenses paid by 5/22/09 paycheck:
Electric bill due 6/9/09
Cell phone bill due 6/10/09
Credit Card bill due 6/8/09

Regular expenses paid by 6/5/09 paycheck:
Phone bill due 6/28/09
Mortgage due 7/1/09

Hope that makes sense.

[mama2ashlynn]

wow. i am so happy to see this thread. i have not been on mdc in awhile now, but remembered there was a finance section in the forums and whamo...the first thing I see is a dave ramsey thread. I just started the Fin Peace University in a small group with my new church. We just finished lesson 3. I am proud to say my husband and I are debt free already! : ANd have $1000 in a EF. We used money I had saved for a tummy tuck after having kids to pay off our debt. I learned to GET REAL and it was more important to be debt free than have the surgery. It was hard to give up but it now feels so good. But....now....we finished our first months budget and allocated spending plan and MAN...we are broke! We now are cutting back on everything. No nada. Just the bare essentials. We are only day 1 in our budget but it feels good and scary at the same time. We are now couponing, increasing insurance deductibles to 1000 and grouping them together w/1 co for a better rate, canceled hm phone and just have cell phones, stopped getting my nails done, cut back eating out to almost nothing-just 1 time a week. I would love for any other ideas, suggestions?!
Look forward to being part of the group! Thanks!!!
Laura

[Rev1053]

Originally Posted by mama2ashlynn

I just started the Fin Peace University in a small group with my new church. We just finished lesson 3. I am proud to say my husband and I are debt free already! : ANd have $1000 in a EF.
<snip>
We are now couponing, increasing insurance deductibles to 1000 and grouping them together w/1 co for a better rate, canceled hm phone and just have cell phones, stopped getting my nails done, cut back eating out to almost nothing-just 1 time a week. I would love for any other ideas, suggestions?!

Welcome to the DR group! Congrats on doing so awesome already.
It sounds like your doing good already! If you post some numbers on your budget I am sure someone can try to help. We are doing the same sort of things you are.