Please look over my budget and help me make cuts!

[Jilian]

Please help us lower our expenses! We've made some dramatic cuts over the last 6 mos - lowered cable, got rid of DH's cell phone, downgraded our vehicle, and started couponing. We're still barely scraping by now that DS1's dad does not pay child support. I'm posting our budget in hopes that you wise mamas can help!

DH usually brings home around $1,000 every two weeks without overtime. If he is able to get overtime it is sometimes $1,100-1,200 every other week.

DH has a company car with gas paid and a company cell phone that is paid for. We buy a family plan of his company health insurance and dental and it takes $396 out of his pay each month - the pay I mentioned above reflects these premiums already being taken out. Here is the rest:

Rent $950

Food/household items $450

Electricity/central air $150 (goes as low as $80 in the winter months because we are in SW FL)

Water bill $60 - we use cloth diapers and wash every 2-3 days and try to air dry when possible

Car payment $267 - we downgraded from a 2007 Odyssey to a 2005 Value package Civic to save on payments and gas. It will be paid off in 3 more years

Gas $200 - DS1 goes to montessori school 2 towns over. His father picks him up when possible and DH drives him when possible. Sometimes we don't use the whole $200 we allot

DH's student loan $50, but it is with a collection company and he has the option of setting his own payments. Some months we skip payments and they are very understanding. He owes $6,000

DH's other student loan is on forebodance until 6/09 and the payments
are $255, the balance is just over $30,000

My student loan is $50 and the balance is $2,200 I can have this put on forebodance if necessary and might have to

Auto insurance $70 with $1,000 deductibles.

Local cable & internet $15 - DH's company requires him to have internet so they reimburse him the $50/mo. The $15 is for local cable plus taxes.

My cell phone $55 - only phone we have, we dropped our home phone. This makes me feel secure because of DS2's health issues. We do a lot of travelling far away for medical appointments.

So with all of that added in we are $317 short if DH does not get overtime. Luckily he's been getting overtime most of the time. I don't want the pressure on him to always have to work overtime though. DS2 was born with a heart defect and had a quad bypass last year when he was 2 weeks old. Putting him in daycare for me to go to work is not an option. DH's schedule is so random that it is hard to work a job for me around his schedule. His mom just had her hours cut back and we're considering asking her to watch him 2 days a week for me to work.

We're also trying to get the kids on FL Kid Care Health Insurance for the low cost. Then we can drop DH's expensive health ins and just get catastrophic for the two of us. We're on the Dave Ramsey plan so we have the mini emergency fund and work with a tight zero-balanced budget. We had no cc debt until Saturday when our cat almost died and it cost $1200 to save him. That went on the cc. Hopefully our tax return will pay that off!

Any other suggestions??

[Jessie D]

Any possibility of looking for cheaper rent? reducing water costs, by fewer and shorter showers, wearing clothing more than once before laundering? Re-evaluate your grocery budget and how much you drive. Try to combine outtings as much as you can. Otherwise it already looks like you're pretty much astight as you can get I think. Do you have an Angel food ministry near you?

[mtm]

is there a reason you don't get chid support anymore? Your budget looks fairly tight already.

[Jilian]

Originally Posted by mtm

is there a reason you don't get chid support anymore? Your budget looks fairly tight already.

Well XH just stopped paying despite being court ordered to pay. He owns a failing business right now and is expecting his second child with his new wife. He'd rather keep his extras like racing and buying things for his ATV rather than helping to support his son. Luckily we are going back to court in November to address this but it is an on-going issue and I'd rather become free of having to rely on child support. That way if we ever do get payments they are extra and can go towards DS1's college savings and school expenses.

[mamamelia]

first of all, huge hugs to your son what a brave little boy you have there!

Car payment $267 - we downgraded from a 2007 Odyssey to a 2005 Value package Civic to save on payments and gas. It will be paid off in 3 more years

could you downgrade a little more? it's only 2008, a 2005 car is not that old and still somewhat expensive. if you could try to find a car that will you a repayment of half of what you are currently paying, all the better. if you cut the repayment in half, that's $4800 over the course of the 3 years that it would have taken to pay off. that's your student loan gone and $2000 off one your dh's student loans + you'll still own the car 3 years later. you don't need a later model car especially if it's just for you to drive (you mentioned your dh has a company car). is it possible to ditch the second car altogether and use the company car instead? of course you'll pay for any extra gas that is used by your dh outside of work hours, but it will free up $267 from your budget every month. or do you need the 2nd car because of ds2's condition?

is it possible for you to homeschool your son? you said you needed to be a stay at home mama because of ds2's condition.. could you get creative and set up a montessori environment for ds1 at home being that you already need to stay at home? that's $200 saved on gas right there. save the $200 for 2 months and buy him some good quality montessori materials to use, and continue to save the $200 from there on. that's $2400 in one year to contribute towards debt.

it's great that you can postpone a debt payment in the short term, but it doesn't make the debt go away.. it's still a certain amount and under your name, so you need to try and look at paying whatever you can off the debt you owe.

that's all i can think of.. it seems you are already being as frugal as it possibly is. best of luck to you mama!

[Jilian]

Downgrading the car is an option and I've discussed it with DH but he's still nervous and wants me to have a really reliable car for the amount of travelling we do to appointmetns. The cardiologist is 90 mins away. We cannot just rely on the company car because DH works a lot and is usually out with it. That would leave me no car for appointments and pick ups/drop offs of DS1 at school, soccer, and visits with his dad.

Homeschooling: I'm open to the idea but my XH is not. DS1 has sensory issues and possibly is on the autism spectrum. He's being re-evaluated next week. He's been having trouble in school a LOT. Homeschooling is looking pretty good to me right now!

[mamamelia]

awww.. mama i know how you feel. my dd also has sensory issues (she was actually diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and we also believe she has auditory processing disorder).

i pulled my dd out of montessori because i saw that while she 'behaved' at school, she was completely uncontrollable and hyperstimulated for several hours afterwards. i couldn't understand it (we were in the process of getting a second opinion).. while i felt i was doing some good for her by sending her to a more stimulating environment, i also realised that she needed the same calm, orderly environment WITHOUT the added stimulation of other kids going about thier activity. plus, on the financial side it was costing me $300 in travel expenses every month to go pick her up as it was a few towns over. that was in addition to the $700 month tuition. it was a no brainer for me after that. i decided to homeschool. we're currently doing it a little slow but we hope to get back into a good groove soon.
why isn't your XH open to the idea of homeschooling? he has stopped paying you child support because he chooses to be self centered, so why should he be given so much ground in a decision like this? you obviously know your son better and you feel that maybe sending him to school isn't in his best interest, not to mention the fact that you are paying for the trips with money you don't have.. and your XH is not contributing to the financial side. if he was contributing, i'd say he has more voice, but he is not paying you child support and he is not paying for the gas costs either. if he is going to be firm in his decision with sending your son to montessori, then he needs to show it financially too.. that is, if sending your ds to montessori is in your son's best interests. i'm sorry if i'm being a downer, i just don't think it's fair on you. you have a new son too, and i'm sure his medical expenses have been through the roof, but it hasn't stopped you from caring for and providing for ds1.. and your XH needs to step up to the plate just as equally as you have.

about the car: ok, fair enough, i wouldn't drop the car then. but i would definitely still try to downgrade even further. even a 2003 model should still be good.

[sbrinton]

First of all, I want to encourage you that you are doing a great job. You are making a lot of hard choices and I know it's not easy. I think there are a few things you can do.

My take is keep the car. It should last you at least 5-7 more years and is a reliable, economical vehicle.

I would encourage your husband to work as much overtime as he can. It will not kill him to work hard for a few months or years! If he cannot get enough hours in his current job, I would consider having him find a second job. Many companies need seasonal help over the holidays?

Whenever you have any extra money, use it to pay off your lowest-balance debt first. Credit card, your school loan, your husband's smaller school loan, the car loan, and then the higher balance school loan. Everytime you pay off one of your loans, you free up that monthly payment to go towards paying down another loan more quickly.

If you just put money on the credit card, you might see if you can transfer the balance to a card with a low or zero interest "teaser" rate you don't pay interest until you are able to pay it off. And then do everything you can to pay this off quickly.

If you have a lower electricity bill over the winter, use any savings to pay off debt.

If you are able, I would consider looking for a less expensive place to live. Right now, your rent is almost 50% of your take home pay. I don't know how expensive central Florida is, but if you could cut that by even $100-200 a month, it would really help.

I would do what you can to save money on food and gas. Evaluate what you have spent at the end of the month and put any savings - even if it is just $20 - towards paying off debt.

Look into any government programs - or other types of assistance - that might help you to save even a little more each month.

If you do start to get child support, use it to pay off debt before you save for college. I hope XH will start to pay, but I agree that it's not wise to count on it.

Finally, I think your DH needs to have a plan for how he can eventually earn more money. He went to school, so what is his plan to earn more? Depending on his industry, does he want to become a manager, own his own company, move up?

Likewise, if it is possible for you to find free childcare in the short term so that you can work, this might be wise.

[Jilian]

Thanks for the tips We are in a lease right now until Feb and when it is up we are going to ask the owner to lower rent to reflect the lower home values. If he is not agreeable we will look for another home. We should have no problem finding one on our same street for $800-$850/mo We're in foreclosureville here in SW FL so house prices are very, very low. We'd obviously prefer not to move if we can help it.

DH received a promotion last year to a low supervisor position. He actually talked to his boss today about his annual review and received a 6.5% raise We hope that DH will continue climbing the ladder towards a higher supervisory position but the problem with that is that he'd have to move to Tampa to take a higher position with higher pay and my custody states that we have to petition the court to be allowed to move more than 50 miles away from XH (because of visitation logistics). DH's degree is in communications - we're hoping to be able to move back to Boston where our family lives eventually but again my gem of an XH will fight me to the death on that. We're hoping to work on paying down debt and when we're in a position to move we will approach XH one last time and if he says no we will go ahead and petition the court.

As you can probably tell my XH is stubborn and does not make things easy. I may make the decision without him to homeschool if my lawyer says it is ok. I'm just cautious about making choices that a judge make look down upon, KWIM?

[sbrinton]

I had to run this morning but I had a few other thoughts as I was driving.

Could you take care of another child in your home a few days a week or do something else to earn money? Or barter some of your skills to save money?

When we were in a similar situation, I used to work 4 hours a week at a local farm in exchange for a huge box of produce, eggs, and bread each week. This was worth about $160 a month. I cleaned my parents house once a week, which meant an extra $320 a month. My husband and I would babysit for other families here or there which meant $20 extra several times a month. Little things like this can really add up.