Making a Living, Breathing Budget Is Hard


After about 13 months of listening to Dave Ramsey’s podcasts on my iPhone telling people that their first, very first, problem is that they don’t have a written budget, we’ve finally done it. Every morning when I’m making Kristin’s sandwich and making my eggs, I hear him tell people to sit down at the beginning of the month and “give every dollar a name” until you are left with zero for the month.

It’s seemed impossible all this time. It would take me 5 pages to describe how our monthly expenses are out of control unpredictable because of medical expenses, primarily. In any given month, we could have $75 in co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses and then the next month it could be approaching $1,000.

Here’s what we did yesterday on our dreary, rainy 5th of July:

  • We sat at the PC with Excel open and wrote down our estimated income for the month. Since Kristin has 2 paychecks and we try to take out the exact same amount from my business account every month as my “paycheck,” we used those numbers.
  • Then we wrote down our fixed expenses for July. Here is where it got really weird and we ended up having at least a 45 minute discussion on whether this needs to be July or August expenses: 90% of the fixed bills were due on the first and were paid for with my June paycheck at the end of the month. In the end, we decided July was July for everything.
  • Then we wrote down all of our adjustable, but potential expenses and filled in what we expected to spend this month until we hit “0.”
  • We got out the coupon book and put an index card with each adjustable expense in each slot with how much we are starting with this month. Next month, we will add the same amount to what is left or use the adjusted amount in accordance to August’s needs.

I need to head over to Barnes and Noble and sit with his book The Total Money Makeover for a while to read some particulars about what to do with things like periodic expenses that leave your budget fine in some months, but overdrawn on the month they are due, because I don’t think this system is supposed to average the cost out.

Things that surprised us (well, sometimes me, because Kristin is so darn smart with money):

  • Our fixed expenses are more than we used to make when we got married (ouch!).
  • We really can’t cut anything out except doing what Ramsey says, “live on rice and beans and beans and rice.” If you cancel one part of the cable/phone/Internet, it ends up costing more. I can’t eat any less food and we already buy sale items.
  • The biggest movable force in our table is my income, which is both awesome and scary at the same time. It’s time to go for it and see where we can be in December.
  • Dang! This is going to be a lot of work, but I’ve heard that at least 500 times on the podcast, so it’s time for me to man-up and do it anyway.

In the end, we were glad to have gotten through hours of what is (to me) very stressful and tedious work without having a fight or any semi-major blowup. In hindsight, I distinctly remember being quite calm in my most frustrated moments because I honestly didn’t know what the right answer was, so there was no reason to get mad at Kristin. Now we know we have enough for her to go buy a purse and me get a new wallet this month…

… and that brings financial peace. One. Step. At. A. Time.

Not One to Get One’s Hope Up

Kristin's blogrollI was walking a fine line most of the afternoon and all evening with Kristin today. She put in a “work order” for her site, kris·tin·ol·o·gy, via e-mail for a blogroll that shows up like so many of those crappy Blogger designs that are out there.

I am fundamentally opposed to Blogger because it’s not as customizable as I need to do what I want. I want fully-customizable or quick and dirty. That’s why I work in WordPress or Posterous. Posterous has a decent amount of control, but I use it because I can post from anywhere with anything quickly and easily without thinking about style. I don’t mind the lack of design control because I don’t want design control in this case. It’s for writing and publishing to Facebook and Twitter.

So, you can imagine my horror as I see that she wants a Blogger blogroll, just because it’s like Blogger. It’s actually a good idea to display what she wanted: the latest blog post title and when it was last updated. Who wants to go to a site that hasn’t been updated all week or month, right?

Then she said it after dinner: “then I want a Blogger site.” I knew she was both joking and serious at the same time. “Nooooo!!!! You’re not getting a Blogger site after all of this WordPress work. You can’t ditch the best blogging platform available just because you want links to show a certain way!”

I tried to explain how much code is involved in getting the RSS information to get the title and the publishing date and said I’d have to hire someone to do that programming for me. Partially true. Well, if I was going to do it myself, it was totally true, but I was holding out hope that there was a plugin that would do exactly what she wanted. There has to be, but it would likely be a matter of whether or not it’s still being updated for WordPress 3.0.

I’ve learned my lesson to not say I will do something and then not do it, but I also knew she had strong suspicions that I can do anything I set out to do. I tell her those stories of my coding conquests almost daily, so it’s possible that there is some slight undue over-confidence in my abilities. She went to bed thinking it wasn’t going to happen…

It took me two tries and to wait about 15 minutes of frustrating testing before Google’s AJAX feed API went through their system before the plugin started working correctly. It was just showing it like before no matter what I did until the API started working. Amazingly, the plugin even has a “Bloggger (TM)” display setting. LOL!

All said and done, I’ve once again proven why I’m the “WordPress go-to guy for WordPress people” and gotten the job done for my most important client. She said she’d pay me for any work I do, but I don’t think she’s got anything I don’t already own. 😉

Sweet Leaf Green Tea Tastes Great

We usually buy 8-10 Arizona Energy drinks for my wife every week. She takes one to work every day and we usually both drink them on Saturday mornings. Sitting next to it on the isle, something caught her eye this week: Citrus Sweet Leaf Green Tea. I’ll forgive and almost ignore the whole “it’s organic” crap that was on the label, including the USDA certification as such, since I think that is a bunch of hooey and refuse to go out of my way or out of my pocket to pay for anything certified for something that I don’t care about.

Regardless, the design of the can was amazing and she knows I like my green tea, especially if it’s got citrus flavoring in it. For $1, I’m willing to try a good tea to have as my Saturday treat, so we got one.

I’d say that initially, it tasted just like a swig of sweet tea, but then the citrus was introduced a moment later… and I liked it. It was sort of the same effect as Pepsi Lime used to have before they pulled that most wonderful nectar from production. I enjoyed every drop and will probably buy a few when I go pick up my Advair prescription tomorrow. It’s a lot more expensive than the Publix brand gallons of tea, but these are the simple treats in life that make life a life worth enjoying.

For more information on the company story and their other products, their site is www.sweetleaftea.com and are located in Austin, TX.

My Diploma Arrived!

They said it would take 4-6 weeks for it to arrive, and it was about 7 weeks, but it came at last! I went to the bank late this morning while Kristin was doing stuff around the house and stopped at the mailbox on my way back into the development.

Lo and behold, there was ONE piece of mail today: my diploma. Doggone, I should have snapped a photo with my phone, but oh well. I ran into the house grinning ear to ear only to realize after about 5 seconds that the shower was running.

/sigh

I went to the couch to wait it out and begin our ceremonious opening of the envelope and hanging of the paper in its appointed place. Enjoy the gallery.