Monday, January 16, 2012

Budgeting in the Real World

I've spent the better part of this month working and reworking my basic plan for the year (and yes, I know this will need to be tweaked on a month to month basis, but I wanted a good workable basic plan).
After visting bankrate.com, I realized that in order to get my remaining credit card debt paid off by August (when the Princess goes off to school), I needed to put roughly $950 per month towards the credit card. That would be over 1/3 of my monthly take-home pay. I was determined that I COULD do this.

Wisely, however, I shared my plan with a friend who pointed out that while my goal was understandable, in reality it just wasn't feasible. I only had so many places where I could further cut spending without sitting in the dark every night. Of course I tend to be stubborn and INSISTED I could do it, I just had to get more creative.

I crunched numbers. And re-crunched them. And banged my head against the wall. And finally, I had to admit that my friend was right. There just weren't enough places I could cut further in order to make that goal I had set in my mind -- this is the real world and I guess I have to live in it. (I really hate being wrong).

For now, I'll be putting $500/month to the credit card which should have it paid off by May 2013. Not nearly as early as I'd like. However, I'm going make a vow to be much more consistent about "snowflaking" any extra money towards that balance. At the end of each month, whatever I'm under budget will go straight to that credit card debt. With any luck, I'll be able to knock a few months off of that debt free deadline. Wish me luck!

4 comments:

  1. Where there's a will, there's a way!!! Good luck!! :)

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  2. If lowering expenses doesn't work, can you increase income? I think $500 a month towards cc's is high too, but I know how much you want this gone.

    I've been finding that I need to tweak many things since coming up with my 2012 budget...I'm just hoping that I can put enough away before the car breaks down, or the roof leaks! :)!

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  3. Oh, I can manage the $500, its the $950 I can't swing! So, for now its going to be the $500 and then whatever I can "snowflake" I suppose!

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  4. Good luck Sass - I hope that you can find lots of 'snowflakes' :)

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