First budget meeting!

The hubby and I sat down to have our first 'official' budget meeting last night, but I'm not sure it went the way I thought it might. I pictured things getting heated, both of us having ideas and goals for our money, but that's not the way it went, and actually, I'm a little dissapointed.

My husband seems a bit disinterested in the subject, and says that I can do whatever I want. The problem is that while he doesn't spend a lot of money, when he does spend, it's usually spur of the moment. For example, our son is completing his pinewood dirby car for boyscouts, and my husband needed to "run out for a few supplies" last night after our budget talk. He spent nearly 100.00 dollars of our already strapped budget.

Again, this is a rarity for him, but it does mess things up quite a bit. When he fails to take an interest in how the money is spent, I take the weight of rearranging our budget to make it work. At any rate, our budget won't begin until the first of April as we have already shot ourselves in the feet for this month. We failed to budget our last paycheck, and are now seriously paying for it. Literally. We somehow need to have necessary car repairs (unplanned for) and pay all bills from our end of month pay.

Here is where we will pick it up with the first April paycheck. I am going to try the 1/2 payment method, and because I don't (at this point) trust myself to leave money in the back until I need it, I am going to pull out that half and place it in its own envelope to be redeposited when the bill comes due.

Payday 1 and 2 for my husband will look the same:

Mortgage: 400
Van: 200
Insurance: 51
Cell: 125
Groceries: 200
Gasoliene: 125
Internet:  25


This will leave extra money on my husband's second pay period that will all go directly to debt.

My paycheck will be as follows (not 1/2 payments as I get paid monthly). Mine is primarily going to be used to pay down debt.

Cap 1 (me): 80
Cap 1 (hubs): 80
Credit card (me): 50
Firestone card:  50
Student loan (me): 50
Electric bill : 150
Gas Bill: 150
Water bill: 86
Fun money for month: 200
Eating out: 200

Everything else is going to directly to our debt. It isn't perfect, and I'm sure it will change a million times, but it's a good place to start.

An honest look at my money

My numbers are not great. My debt is high and my income is low...only not so much. My income is decent actually, and I should be in MUCH better shape than I actually am. The problem is that  I put 50 dollars to this debt, 75 to that debt, 40 to another debt, and so on like that until I have no money left (umm...edit here..I honestly thought this was true until I typed out my numbers below... I actually have unaccounted for dollars that could go toward debt. So embarrassingly bad with my money here).

 I never really make traction on a debt with paying all of the minimums, but there isn't much leftover after I do. 

Here are my real numbers. I am awful with numbers (big surprise,eh?). I can't make sense of them or keep them straight/organized. 

Income comes from my job and my husbands. 

Income 1 (mine): 2,552.00 paid monthly (teacher salary)

Income 2 (hubs): 1,180  paid the first of the month

                             1, 350 paid the middle of the month  (He also gets a monthly commission check                                     that I don't usually factor in because it can vary greatly.) 

So for the month we bring in (after taxes and insurance) $5,082.00 without commission included. 

Our expenses break down as follows:

Mortgage: 794

Electricity: 160

Gas Bill:   190 (this time of year)

Water:    86

Cell phones: 250

Car Insurance: 102

Daycare:  800

Car payment: 400

CC1: 75

CC2: 79

CC3: 80

CC4: 40

Groceries: 600

Gas: 400

Student loans: 200

Medical bills: 100

Entertainment: 300

Eating out: 250

Unaccounted for: 176

These are raw as they are numbers without having made any adjustments to them. Keeping it real here. 

I think if this were a dear abby column, I would sign off here as "desperate for help". Husband and I have a date to sit down tonight and figure out how to improve these numbers and divide them so that they are paid as we get paid.