August 2013 Getting Out of Debt Update

September 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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Spending budget: $400/mo.
We bought $616.53 and made $0 selling misc items.
Total spent in August : $616.53


Sigh- yes that is 50% more than the allotted budget.  We spent about $100 on fast food and restaurants and another $100 on my “shopping sprees” to dollar stores and Target.

Current splurge $$ from coming in under budget:  $332.75 (our total at the end of July) – $216.53 (or August deficit) = $116.22.

Our $400 spending budget has to cover all groceries, household supplies, personal care products, gifts, clothes and other shopping purchases, as well as home improvement and entertainment.  It’s about a 30% reduction to our spending budget. If we come in under the $400, half will go towards the principal on our 2 homes and the other half will be split between us for splurge money. As a partial reward for buckling down and spending even less than with our previous shoe-string budget, we took a trip to Disney World in February with our savings. Our next goal for our splurge money  is to pay for a flat screen tv – it will be our first!
We made 1 extra principal payment in August, but with Kindergarten and preschool starting up again I’m able to work more and hope I can bring in enough extra to increase this amount to 2 principal payments again soon.
It really hurt to lower the amount of our designated splurge money, but since we really did have $200 of frivolous purchases, it’s only right to take it from this “fund”. Until both houses are paid off we can’t splurge on everything we want at the same time!  Quite honestly that’s usually were we get into trouble – with the “I deserve it”s and the “I don’t have time”s and the “that would be really nice”s.  We live in such a self gratification world that it’s hard to keep our focus on others.  When we remember that all we have comes from and belongs to God it helps us keep our finances in check right where they need to be.  After all, God doesn’t really care about fast food 😉
Is your family being intentional to get debt paid off before it’s due?  I’d love to hear your story, and to even share it here as a guest post if you’re interested.

If you haven’t been following our quest to pay off both houses and be 100% debt free, you can catch up here. 

Getting Out of Debt Step 1: Know how much debt you have and the associated interest rates.
Getting Out of Debt Step 2: Build an Emergency Fund
Getting Out of Debt Step 3 (Budgeting Step 1): Know how much money you have to spend and make sure your tax withholdings are correct.
Getting Out of Debt Step 4: Create a Budget
Budgeting Step 2: Track your current expenses– preferably 1 year’s worth – to see where you’re spending money.
Budgeting Step 3: Make a plan for all your money, taking into account one time expenses.
Budgeting Step 4: Check up weekly
Budgeting Step 5: Reassess monthly
June Update
July Update
August Update
September Update
October Update 
November Update 
December Update
January 2013 Update 
February 2013 Update
March 2013 Update
April 2013 Update
May 2013 Update
June 2013 Update

Estimated date to have both houses paid in full: November 2020! This puts us in a great position to help our kids with their first vehicle and pay state tuition for their college.

Filed Under: debt, Money Management

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