Well, I have found the culprit, and the culprit is me.

I *did* enter in the expected escrow check refund.

CORRECTION! It was mostly me, but partly YNAB - it was entered, but YNAB has this little quirkiness where even though there aren’t enough entries to span the entire screen, it will still have a scrollable scrollbar, and the scrollbar was scrolled down ever so slightly so that the pertinent escrow entry was hidden from view.

Doh!

So, in a way I’m relieved, because this means I didn’t make a truly HORRIBLE mistake that I have no idea what it was. I deleted the escrow income entry which threw my top “Available” balance into the negative around 1600. Not fun, but it wasn’t *too* hard to tweak things around to fix.

I moved everything out of our “buffer” category (which is pretty much like savings, for those not in the YNAB know). I had to get rid of any savings in the car repair/tires categories, and then I was really in a pickle. Since it’s the end of the month, it’s not like I can change our grocery budgeted amount, because we’ve already spent all our money on groceries. Now, maybe it’s just me, but it’s awful hard to cut back on money you’ve already spent. I didn’t mind pulling money out of the car categories, because when the check *does* come in, it will just go right back there (buffer too).

But after I cut out the “easy” stuff, I was left with the hard stuff. I have $375 budgeted to tuition, as my husband is in school and that’s the amount I figured would keep us OK each term for tuition, and I worked hard to figure out what the “average” monthly amount should be. I also have $110 going into a “Christmas” category, and I didn’t want to pull it out of there either, even if I knew I could just put it back the next month. Something about those categories staying rock solid and never ever changing just makes me feel happy.

But there was no other place to pull the negative $100 I still had!

I sat and looked at my budget screen for a long while and finally, I decided I would lower the budgeted amounts for categories that had already been spent. I chose to do this in our “debt reduction” categories, as that’s an area that won’t mess up the data too much. (ie: i want to know that I budgeted $400 for groceries, and I don’t want any weird tweaking to mess that up.)

In doing this, the negative amount is carried over to the next month, subtracting it from the available balance.

This is better shown by looking at YNAB:

Lowering the budgeted debt amount:

OK, so I’m getting a little slap-happy with the photoshop, but it displays my point - much easier to reallocate money you *haven’t* spent yet, then money you have.

YNAB - Please fix that damn scrollbar thing. And let me reconcile, while you’re at it :)

So I logged on to our bank account this morning to see a puzzling number. ~$1700.

How can that be? Let me explain.

I just wrote a check this morning for my kids’ school, which is ~$1400, so that number up there will soon change to ~$300, not to mention a few gas purchases that always show up as $1 until they finally clear for the real amount.

School tuition is budgeted for! Gas is budgeted for! And I have money built up in my “buffer” category, and there is also a couple hundred built up here and there in categories that won’t be spent until later in the year.

What is going on?

Have I miscalculated something?

I must have, because this can’t be right.

The only thing I can think of, is maybe I have already entered our expected escrow refund check as “income” (thus making it available to assign to categories and spend), even though it hasn’t arrived yet - but I checked on that last night, and I *thought* that I hadn’t entered it.

Hmmmm.

I have to admit, I used to be a quicken user. I would go through spots and spats of not using it, and then have a ton of transactions to download and enter at a time. I would plan ahead by entering upcoming bills/paychecks ahead of time in the register so I could see the timeline of when the money comes in and when the bills getting paid goes out, but even doing that, it didn’t give me/us the control over our money that YNAB does. I actually hadn’t opened it up since about November. And with YNAB, I haven’t done any hard core reconciling or register balancing. I enter in the transactions by hand every night, or every other night, and since we have money socked away, I idly make sure the balance on my checking is kind of close to the balance in YNAB, but I haven’t really worried about the actual account balance.

OK, I take that back - when we refinanced our mortgage, I was VERY worried about the checking account balance/register and timed everything out just so, in order to take enough money to closing and still have money for certain bills etc. But now? This is nothing like that.. I was clear sailing, the end of the month is nigh, everything should be comin’ up roses.

I feel like I’m cheating on YNAB or something, but I really do need more register/account balancing going on.

I have checked out a few other money programs, one my brother swears by adamantly (Ace Money), and it does look pretty good, but the budgeting aspects of it are nowhere close to YNAB, so I’d be doing 2 money programs, and that just makes me tired thinking about it.

Argh. Frustrated.

Oh, and a teeny side note on the power bill - Last night I was feeding our cat, and thought, “Damn, it’s cold over here in this corner!” glanced at the window, and realized it was open a crack.

ARGH! ARGH SQUARED!

So while I am anxiously awaiting our credit statements to actually happen, I’m also very anxiously awaiting our power bill.

I was not happy when our December bill came to the tune of $350, but was REALLY not happy when January’s bill came to $450!

We used ~4000 kwh in that bill!

Now, there was a few culprits, namely, we hadn’t changed our air filters in some time, so we quickly did that.

Next, I set our programmable thermostat on the main level (which is for main level and basement) to be quite low while we are away during the day. Since we both work, and the kids are in school/daycare all day, there’s no need to heat the house while we’re gone. I set it to start heating again about 40 minutes before we’re due to be home, and then turn down low again at night when we’re all snug in our beds.

We have another unit in the attic, with the thermostat in our bedroom, but it is not a programmable one, so we haven’t done anything with that. Also, I don’t think the attic unit uses gas - I think it’s the heat pump variety, and I am unsure of the issues of setting the temperature super low while you’re out for that type of unit, so it’s just as well.

The only other culprits I can think of, is .. well.. we’re geeks. We have a LOT of computers, and some gadgets. 3 TiVo’s, a firewall server, the husband’s desktop, all running 24/7. The husband has since turned his computer off when he’s not using it, but the others pretty much have to be on all the time. We both open up our laptops for a few hours every evening as well.

We do use CFLs in our basement and in our kitchen, but we haven’t changed out many in our upper level (or the hallways of the main level, now that I think about it) so that’s something we can target next month.

I can’t WAIT to see if the filters and thermostat made a difference in our next bill.

Antsy? Ansy? Antsey?

I don’t know what the proper way to spell it is, but I have got ants in my pants, because it’s the end of the month and I’m eagerly awaiting statements to post so I can finalize February’s numbers for my spreadsheet.

The car loan and home equity loan is done, as well as credit card #3, but I’m still waiting for cards #1 and #2.

In looking over our debt spreadsheet this past weekend, I wasn’t too happy with the numbers. We had a total amount of ~$910 going to the credit card debt for February, well below what I wanted.

We originally wanted to throw $1000 at the credit cards, along with any dependent care reimbursements we got from our flexible spending account. That should be $1385, total. So as you can imagine, I wasn’t happy with $910.

Of course, some things have changed, like the $800 brake bill that popped up, and the fact taht we may have a hefty tax bill come april, but still - we were only $90 away from the $1000, and it’s not my fault the reimbursements are slower than molasses.

So I talked it over with the husband, and he agreed that we could pull $90 out of our “buffer” category to at least get it to $1000.

I hadn’t yet made the payment, and so imagine my glee when waiting for me in our mailbox, was a $192 reimbursement check. So after I deposited that (I love USAA’s Depost@Home feature SO MUCH!), I went ahead and send in a payment, and rounded everything up a bit as well.

So we won’t be making the $1385 number, but we at least made our $1000 +$192.

Yay.

So I budgeted money for both my husband and I to get our oil changed this month. My husband took his in on Monday (president’s day) and blew the budgeted amount because he got synthetic. That man and his car! I’m just kididng, I KNOW he always gets synthetic, and I approve the use of synthetic instead of fossil fuels, so why didn’t I budget for that? Blah.

So, I still needed an oil change, and my brake light has been flashing on and off for the last month or so, so in the back of my head, I knew that when I took it in, it was going to be more than just the cost of oil & lube. We dropped it off to be looked at today and sure enough, when I got the call this morning, it was not good news. The front brakes were pitted and worn down through the pads into the …. um… whatchamacallits, and it also needed new calipers. The rear brakes weren’t so bad, but needed new pads, and the brake fluid was dirty and gross and they recommended a full flush. On top of that, he told me that the clutch was really worn out, but this I already knew and have been socking money into a “new clutch” category (that’ll cost around $1k). I confirmed what I already kind of knew, which is it won’t hurt the car to drive it until the clutch totally gives out - which I don’t WANT to do, but I want to hold out as long as I can. It’s already getting pretty loose in the shifting - how does a worn out clutch drive? You shift, put on the gas, and the engine revs up without “catching” the gear and giving any forward momentum. I have to accelerate pretty slowly.

SOOOOO… the damage is about $800. In the back of my head, I knew that there would probably be some brake work, but I was hopping it would be around $300-400. So, bummer.

However, my husband summed it up perfectly.

“You know, if we hadn’t started a budget, I would really be freaking out about this.”

Amen and hallelujah! I’m going to have to raid a few categories to cover this, and I may have to dip into the buffer (I hope not!!), but this is way better than just having to charge it.

A big battle between relieved that we have funds to cover this, and frustration that this will probably put off a big debt payment even longer.

The good news - my husband had his yearly review and it was good, raise amount and bonus amount will be finalized and given to him next week, with all changes effective in first march paycheck.

Well, it’s official. I’m worried about a possible tax bill. I think it might be as much as 5k, but I really am not sure. I used Jesse’s tax spreadsheet that comes as a “bonus” with YNAB Pro, and I know that it is more of a guideline then anything else, and I did notice there’s nowhere to enter in one’s child care expenses, so that might help things along to lessen a possible bill, but as it is, it’s better to be well prepared for the worst then count on it not being bad.

So, that changes things with the upcoming bonus my husband will be receiving in March. We are going still going to take 1k and blow it (wheee!) But the rest, we will be sticking in savings until we know what’s up with the taxes.

I was also planning on trying to start putting a paycheck each month from “supplemental” to “primary” (part of the YNAB functionality to get you living on last month’s income,) but have changed my mind in that regard as well. Instead, I will just sock money away into a “buffer” category, which is kind of the same thing, but with the benefit of me being able to see the balance in that category and know that it’s there for possible tax bill use as well. If we do have a bill, we’ll probably fund one our IRAs to lessen it’s affect as well, even though that will mean even more money out of pocket. I would rather have more money out of pocket (as long as we have it) and give less to the government, you know what I mean?!

So basically, the plan is to wait and see. We are going to go to a CPA this year also. I think our finances are getting complicated enough to warrant the professional help and save us the headache of slogging through turbo tax. Of course, I still need to get all the info he will need, so there will still be some slogging and math to do. (day care costs minus the cost of kindergarten minus theFSA costs, etc.).

So.. I guess I’m going to be opening a high interest savings account in preparation of stashing bonus money away. I will be sad not to see a huge chunk knocked out of the debt on my spreadsheet.. but hopefully it is just delayed.

I have made a (google docs) spreadsheet which kind of “counts down” the progress I’ve made (err, WILL be making) on our debt. This one above is just for our credit card debt. You can see that I gave a few columns for each credit card, 1 column for the payments, another column for the running balance kind of like a register, and then added a third column to show the actual interest for past months. For months that have already been completed, I put those numbers in bold.

I’ve already found that my method of calculating the interest in the running balance column leaves something to be desired, but it wasn’t too far off, so I am not worrying about it. (I did the calculation like this: (Previous Balance - payment) * 1.012 = new month’s end balance. Then, when the month actually is over and the statement comes, I fill in with the actual new balance and actual finance charge.

(I am WAY far off calculating the interest on our home ec loan, but as it calculates the balance a little HIGHER than it actually is at the end of the month, I feel pretty good putting in the groovy lower number each month, so that’s ok too. Amortization, how you boggle me…)

I find myself checking this spreadsheet out all the time, making little tweaks here and there. Initially we decided that we could throw $1000/ month toward debt, so I populated the spreadsheet with that in mind. The “total paid” column just calculates what the total payments were for the month, which helps me out in the figgerin’. I can glance at it and see if the total monthly figure is what it should be or if i put in too many 0s or something.

Then I got to thinking that we should be getting a FSA dependent care reimbursement each month to the tune of $421 a month. This is kind of “outside” money, as it doesn’t come in from paychecks, so I decided we could throw all that at the debt too, thus our monthly total payment will be $1421.

And the tweaking continues! My husband gets paid every two weeks which results in 26 paychecks a year instead of 24. Realizing that, I decided that the months that he gets 3 paychecks instead of 2, we would just stick that “extra” paycheck toward the debt - thus you can see that for May and Oct the total payments include an extra $1700.

Then I also realized that because there are 26 paychecks for him and he’s doing the FSA plan through his work, the original $421 FSA number is wrong, it’s actually $385 with 2 months (may and oct) being 577. I decided we can try to cough up the extra $36 each month anyway.

I have a master spreadsheet that includes not only the credit cards but the car loan and the home equity loan as well, and what with all my tweaking and fiddling and trying to think up ways to “find” some money, my spreadsheet says that we could be COMPLETELY out of this mess by JULY 2010 — a good 5 months earlier than my original December 2010 estimate/goal.

Now, I know that things can happen, and is actually likely TO happen… But I am feeling pretty good about the original goal of debt-free by 2011 - especially with a 5 month cushion!

I heart spreadsheets. I really do. I could take them home and snuggle them all night long.

Ahem.

We closed on our refinance on Friday evening. We had a 5/1 ARM at 4.75 that was due to adjust next february. We’re not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, so I know that getting into a 30 yr fixed was the right thing to do, but I still can’t shake the “did we do the right thing?” feeling. Plus, just the stress of getting it all DONE - sending paperwork to the credit union, calling and checking up on things, fax this, fax that.. I was wigging out! It’s done now. Yay!

We should be getting around $1600 back from escrow on the old mortgage. I am going to enter it as supplemental income, and then when the last paycheck of the month comes in, I will be entering that one as “primary”, which kind of makes us 1/4 on the way to Rule #1. It’s tempting to NOT do this, and just plug it into the debt, but I know that operating under rule #1 will be a big benefit to our family.

I scheduled only minimums to our credit cards this month, due to the closing and saving up for closing costs, however, I also put in a reimbursement claim for our dependent care FSA, which I decided early on in this “let’s get rid of all this debt” journey, that all FSA checks would go toward debt.

So $384 got sent to citibank. Nice :) Makes that escrow check not going toward debt a smidge better.

Can’t wait for bonus time. - after that, I should be able to enter 1 or 2 more paychecks as “primary” instead of “supplemental”.

Once again…. Just wondering if I’m talking in the dark here.. or if anyone is reading this?

I posted my January update, but only dealt with the credit cards. We are, of course, making our usual payments to car loan, and home equity loan as well.. so this blog is about the 99k of debt - let’s get a full update on the $99k of debt, shall we?

Obviously, our long term goal is to pay off all debt aside from our mortgage.

I’ve already broken this down in terms of what debt gets paid off first. I am aiming to get all credit card debt paid off by next March.

However, before I go whole hog on the debt snowball, we need to get some savings in place first. Because both my husband and I work, and because our monthly expenses are fairly high, I want to get $2000 set away in a savings account for emergencies. That’s high priority.

Secondly, I want to get a buffer in place so we can use YNAB’s rule #1. Between the two of us, we bring in around $7500 a month. This is not equal to our expenses, so I know we wouldn’t need that full amount as a buffer.. Also, I don’t mind building up to that gradually. Already there is cash building in our checking account due to budgeting money in categories for yearly expenses money that is earmarked, but won’t be spent for several months.

And this is a very short term goal, but as I’ve mentioned previously, we are refinancing our 1st mortgage to a 30 fixed (currently, it’s a 5/1 arm and would adjust next year. With interest rates as low as they’ve been, we decided to go for it now) I am socking money away to bring to our closing, which actually, is happening on Friday (barring anything disastrous happening). I put $1500 away last month, and have earmarked another $1500 in February’s budget so we will be bringing $3k to closing. Other closing costs and prepaids will be rolled into the mortgage. (BTW, how antsy am I to get that final closing cost sheet? Answer: VERY ANTSY.)

So, my short term goals:

-$3k to take to closing (which is this friday, so this one is about to come fruition)
-$2k in emergency savings
-build up a buffer

My husband gets a bonus at the end of February/beginning of March every year, and lucky for us, it’s a good chunk of change! In the past, we have used it on things we want. This year, we’ve decided we want to be out of debt more than we want more “stuff”. HOWEVER.. we did decide that we would take $1,000 (total, not each of us) and blow it on fun stuff. I am going to get a flash for my camera (about $250), and he is going to get a PS3 (I think around $400, but honestly, I have no idea). I am hoping that a few hundred left over we can put toward car tires, but we will see.

We have decided that the rest of the bonus will be divied up as follows:

$2000 will go to savings,
$2000 will go toward building a buffer,
the rest will go toward debt.

I am especially glad that we haven’t put a number on the amount going to debt, because then if the bonus comes in at MORE than we thought it would, we would be tempted to lump the “extra” into the fun money. I have tentatively planned on $8,000 going toward debt, as $12,000 is around what last year’s bonus came out to. Again, if there is more, a few hundred going toward car tires would not be amiss with me!

So the buffer I’m still a little fuzzy on when exactly we’ll have a full one. I managed to sock away $1500 in Jan. and Feb., for the closing costs. In March, we’ll have $2k toward the buffer from the bonus, we’ll be getting $1500 back from escrow on our old mortgage, and if I can stuff another $1500 into that category (as I showed I could do in jan and feb) in March, then we could be operating on $5k worth of buffer money in April and put all April paychecks in the “primary” category instead of “supplemental”.

This sounds GREAT, but at the same time, it would put a bit of a damper on the debt snowball. We would only be able to do the minimums march and april if I went with that plan, meaning we wouldn’t really kickstart the snowball until MAY. Ergh. Anyway, I’m just not sure. Given that we managed to pay off $750 in January even with socking away $1500.. maybe we can do both. I guess we’ll see.