Sorry that this update for April has come a week late. If you didn’t notice, my blog suffered for a couple of weeks while life was hectic, so I’m just getting around to this. If this bores you to death, I totally understand. Just go enter my
Cupcake Cuties giveaway and then come back tomorrow for hopefully something a bit more interesting.
INCOME: Our income is still just one, but Chip is weeks away from getting fully re-enlisted in the National Guard again and should be off to OCS in June. That means a full time paycheck for 2 full months. Yippee! After the paycheck comes the officer commissioning bonus. Yippee! Hopefully we can continue to live off my paycheck for the most part and sent practically all of his to debt. That would be a wonderful change after basically just paying the minimums for several months.
UNDER BUDGET:Auto parts/Service: $4 under budget. But since we had a bad month last month, the rolling budget is $63 over still. I’ll just leave it there though and hopefully that overage will roll out within the next few months.
Television: Under budget because I made the payment late into the month and it didn’t clear until May. It caused a lot of hassle that caused us to be disconnected and have to pay a service charge to reconnect. Ticked me off because the check was sent in time (our bank sends the check). I don’t know if it got lost in the mail or if they just didn’t cash it in time, but it is frustrating to no end!
Doctor: $25 under budget for the month, which means we spent $0 (the budget is equal to one co-pay a month – or $25/month). However, there is a rolling $50 right now. In the event we get through May with no doctor’s visit, this should roll out completely for June, which is when Abigail will be scheduled for her 2-year check up. Hooray for things working out!
Home services (pest control and E-mealz): $41 under budget. No service from either this month, so this will roll over.
Home Supplies: $5 under budget – nothing purchased outside of groceries.
Daycare: $130 under budget – which is one week’s tuition. We used Abigail’s vacation days and took off the week while Patrick was on spring break. It saved money and gave both kids some Daddy time before he leaves to do Army stuff this summer for a while.
Baby Supplies: $20 under budget this month which brings the rolling budget to $47 under budget. That’s awesome since we need some diapers right now, so I know there’s room in the budget.
ON BUDGET:
Auto Insurance: Of course. But like last month, we’re now only paying $45/month for both cars rather than $88/month as we previously did, so we’re still saving here! This reduction will save us $516 a year. =)
Mobile Phone: On budget.
Term Life Insurance: Yep
Alarm Monitoring: As expected
Mortgage/HOA: Nothing new here.
OVER BUDGET:Gasoline: $56 over budget, which actually isn’t too bad considering how high gas prices are right now!
Electricity/Water: We were $63 over budget for the month and will a rolling overage, we are $146 over. Good news? That overage for April was a misread meter and May’s bill was only $21! That means this entire rolling overage should be eaten up and the average budget remain intact! I love it when my plans work out!
Eating Out: $67 over budget. We had some family outings (a Patrick-Mom date and a family trip to the zoo) that forced us to eat out a bit which tossed us over our budget. Had we planned better we would have made arrangements for this, but these were both kinda' last-minute plans, so it was a bit high. We'll hopefully do better next month.
Groceries: $161 over budget. Wow. This is actually surprising to me. I’ve been trying to get my etsy shop off the ground which has meant buying candy supplies and I think I had been keeping it separate better than this, but I don’ t know what else to attribute this to. Hopefully we can clean up this act in May!
Pharmacy: $15 over the month, and we’re $67 over in the rolling budget. I think I just have to suck it up and admit that I’m low-balling the budget in this category. Or maybe I should go back to seriously couponing and trying to knock these costs down lower!
Hair: $9 over budget. This was both guys needing a haircut together. And Chip’s tips heavily, which is not necessarily bad, but it is true and plays into our budget.
Toiletries: $4 over budget for the month which brings us to $6 over the rolling budget.
Clothing: $60 over budget. Chip needed some new running shoes for his Army training and running and since his were literally falling apart (the soles were detaching from the shoe) he got a nice new pair.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
- Miscellaneous Charges not in the Budget: $13 on a Mom-Patrick date that was money happily spent; $61 to take the kids to the zoo (plus some extra eating out money that accounted for some of the high eating out bills above) that was a great family excursion; $32 for a book to help Chip physically prepare for re-enlisting in the National Guard; $20 on Easter baskets (yep…that was the total for two whole Easter baskets FULL of goodies, so we did good); and $11 in photo printing under a great deal!
- We used the credit card a few times when we needed get to the next paycheck. So we paid that off. And we paid above the minimum on the two we're paying off.
- Etsy shop is underway. I am seeing profits, which is awesome, but so far I have mostly fed those profits back into the shop by promoting, buying more supplies to get more items into the shop, and buying supplies like shipping boxes that will hopefully cut down on my shipping costs (they are better fitted for my candy). So right now no real profit to speak of, but a growing business that actually is making sales!
- April was an interesting month. It was ALMOST a 3-check month, so what I did was push out our mortgage payment to land into May and essentially allow me to see the extra paycheck in May. I will be using it mostly to replenish our safety net of a bloated emergency fund until Chip gets paid on a regular basis. I will use some of it to probably buy Patrick some new bedroom furniture, as he needs a real big boy bed and furniture now (he’s still in his toddler bed).
So that is it in a long, drawn-out giant nutshell (not really much of a nutshell, is it?.
The month of May will bring swim lessons, some extra driving (boo, hiss) and hopefully not too many other surprises.
How did you do in April?
So yesterday was spent enjoying family time and I didn't get to spend much (read: any) time with my blog. So you're just getting a giveaway linky for today.
Here are a few items I wanted to pass along. Have a safe holiday weekend (for those of you in the US). 
More free stuff here! If you are looking for the giveaway linky, scroll to the bottom of this post. Happy freebies grabbing and sweepstakes and giveaway entering!
Have a great weekend and when you get the chance, check out these great reads!
More free stuff here! If you are looking for the giveaway linky, scroll to the bottom of this post. Happy freebies grabbing and sweepstakes and giveaway entering!
More free stuff here! If you are looking for the giveaway linky, scroll to the bottom of this post. Happy freebies grabbing and sweepstakes and giveaway entering!
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