Hardcore Tightwad's Personal Finance Blog

Here is my thinking about my budget. I don’t have enough money coming in to do everything I want to. My take home for 40 hours is 585. I will up that to 600 by making sure I work a little overtime each week.

I usually set aside all overtime for travel. I get a lot on this job in the summer. A couple of times I worked 20 hours in one day. I get through it by thinking about the travel it will pay for.

For the last year or so I have saved half of what I made in regular time. I lived in a small single room studio to make that possible. In 2 weeks I will move into a 3 bedroom house on a couple acres of land. I can only see 1 neighbor from it. Living there will dictate a lot of my budget.

A lot of my success has been based on avoiding debt and avoiding ongoing bills like high rent. Yes, $600 is high to me.

Well…here it is. It is copied and pasted from Excel


WEEKLY
Food* $25.00
Rent $150.00
Electric Bill $20
Gas* 25
Insurance 29
Storage 16
Internet 20
Audio subscription cancel
Gym 0
Hair Cut* 5
mail box cancel
Pocket Money* 10
Travel overtime
Contingency overtime
401 K 48
Marketing 150
Savings 102
Total $600.00

To summarize
1/4 rent
1/4 savings
1/4 marketing (second income building)
1/4 living expenses


There are some problems with it. The biggest is a shortage of money.
The living expenses is the tough part. I have to cut my food budget (which includes household stuff) in half. Ouch! Hello beans and rice.

The house doesn’t have a washer and drier so I will have to use a laundry mat until I find a set. I actually mean, “find a set”. I will once again pick them up on the roadside and fix them. I want to “dumpster dive” a freezer also. I can’t stand the way a refrigerator thaws veggies during the defrost cycle and re-freezes them. I have worked many years as a refrigeration technician and this is a simple matter.

The main problem with the budget is that it does not have a contingency fund built it. I don’t think a budget can work without one. There is just not enough money for it. I still have about $1,000 in the last years contingency fund and hopefully that will smooth out the problems. I think I will get a raise in October. ($160 gross a month)

The tighter the budget, the more it needs built in contingency funds.

I think the budget has major problems but I will deal with them.

It has been awhile since my last post.

I am now living in a more expensive part of NC. Living cheaply is even more of a challenge. I have been here for 3 months.

My weekly take home was $523.00 a week and now is $585.00. Plus they pay for all my health insurance. I can afford to be sick now.

My original goal was to save half of my take home. I have done better than that and have saved over $10,000 in the last 7 months. My goal was to save $10,000 in 10 months.

I have had limited success with all the other goals.

I am working on my budget for the next year. Here are some major points it will cover.

In about 2 ½ weeks I will move into the house I will rent. It has 3 bedrooms and is on a couple of acres. I can only see one neighbor. The house is $600 (negotiated down from 650) a month, which is well below market price. It is a budget stretcher though. That is about 25% of my take home pay.

I will reduce my savings to 25% of my take home. Part of that will be in the form of an IRA that my employer will match my contribution to.

I will spend the 25% I will not be saving on developing a second income. I have two websites I need to build traffic to, and I am starting a third website on outdoor cooking.

That will leave me 25% of my take home to live on. I’ve played with the numbers a little and they don’t seem to be working. It will be a challenge.

My project for the weekend is developing a budget and setting it up in my envelope budgeting software. I will post it here when it is done.

Thanks for all the positive feedback. The storage fee in the budget is for a storage unit in Colorado. I am in North Carolina. That is a bill I hate paying.

The first week of the December challenge is over. Here are the results.


The Easy Goal
---Set up and use envelope budgeting system. BE FRUGAL.

Surprisingly staying on budget last week was easy. I am using an envelope budgeting software program, called Budget for Windows. At this rate I will be able to save over $10,000 during the next 10 months.

Right before starting this challenge I paid off one credit card. Last week I transferred the balance of the other card to a card with no interest for 6 months. By paying the budgeted $200 a month, it will be paid off in 6 months.

I don’t have plans for the extra $200 a month during the last 4 months. Maybe another website.


The Hardest Goals
---Work out daily - cardio, weights or stretching

I was supposed to work out every morning. I didn’t workout any morning. I worked out most evenings though. I already get up very early and getting up even earlier is killing me. I guess it is just a matter of self discipline.

In the coming week I will force myself to role out of bed and get to it. I want to alternate nautilus and cardio machines in the mornings. On weekends I will add Pillattes. Eventually I want to add 1 hour of walking after work, while listening to books on tape. I’m off to a slow start, but I did get started.

I think I set some specific performance requirements and use a Carolina Shag class in January as a reward. Shag is type of swing dance similar to west coast swing. It is usually danced to beach music.


The Hardest Goals
---Eat in a very healthy, low glycemic index style (no dieting)

I did eat 6 small meals a day. But I think I might have gained weight. Need to emphasis the “small” more. Weigh in is in the morning along with the body fat calculations.

Being a Tightwad is making this harder. I eat lunch in a cafeteria for a flat rate of $3.50. I eat a large salad, 2 veggies, 1 carb and about 3oz of protein. I feel like I am wasting money if I don’t clean my plate. I am stuffed after that. I guess I should cut way back.

Another problem is getting stuck out of town at lunch. I end up delaying lunch and eating in a restaurant. That is expensive and unhealthy. I need to carry some emergency meals so I can stay on target.

I have thought about carrying a couple of meals in my Mr Bento, Japanese thermos lunch box. It would be cheaper I think.



One Last Hard Thing To Do

I didn’t keep track of hardly anything after the first couple of days. I want to make a record of spending (I did use the envelope system), workouts or eating. I didn’t make any entries here either.

About 15 years ago I did a spending log as it was recommended in Your Money or Your Life. The results were shocking. My spending was trivial and not aligned with my values. I think keeping track of things for a while will help me make my life more congruent.

I am rebuilding my life from scratch. I am unhappy with my life. I am not concerned with how I got here. I am focused on building a happy and fulfilling life. During the next 10 months I will create a life that I want to live. I will have to make a lot of short term lifestyle sacrifices to build a sustainable fullfilling lifestyle.

The key to doing this is getting control of the critical areas of my life and building new skills. I want to simplify my life and fill it with what matters most to me. If your life is filled with the trivial there isn’t enough room for the important.

This will be done in a series of challenges. The first will be 1 month long. The three after that will be three months long. This blog will provide some accountability.

December Challenge Goals
1) Set up and use envelope budgeting system. BE FRUGAL.
2) Eat in a very healthy, low glycemic index style (no dieting)
3) Work out daily - cardio, weights or stretching
4) Regularly use Franklin/ Covey time management system.
5) Research and chose one second income stream.
6) Learn speed reading.
7) Learn validative listening skills.

The above are listed in order of importance. That is why this is a personal finance blog and not a fitness blog. Money represents the time you traded for the money. Your time is your life. Your life is the most important possession, so that makes money management critical for building a life.

I really want more goals but I think trying to more will decrease the chance of success. I have much experience taking on more than is possible. These will be covered in more detail individually later.

I take home $523.00 a week. Below is my starting envelope system. It will change as needed. My pay check is distributed between envelopes as follows.

Envelope Budget System

261.50 Savings
50.00 visa payments
5.50 Earthlink
15.25 Storage
5.00 Audio subscription
16.25 Auto insurance
25.00 Rent
6.25 Gym
5.00 food
25.00 Gas
4.50 hair cut
2.50 mail box
36.25 contingency
20.00 pocket money
523.00 MONTHLY TOTAL

It begins now.