So, after setting aside money for my car insurance, I will have just over 2k in extra income from my income tax refunds. I have tweaked my extra income allocation and plan to do the following:

30% - Emergency Fund
20% - Credit Card Debt
20% - Egypt Fund
20% - Roth
10% - Mortgage

In about 2.5 months, I will have 4 - 5k or so extra income, and will do the same with that.

So today is payday, and I see I will be netting an additional $46 per month. Here is where it is going:

BofA credit card - $20
mortgage - $3
main savings - $3
everything else - $20


So, I am pleased about that.

So far this month, I have been doing very well with my spending, even with the car battery replacement and jump start service. I intend to report at the end of each month how I did. I wish I knew how to post an excerpt from Excel.

Are you pessimistic or optimistic about your future?

As I obsess about my budget, I realize that I am optimistic. I can envision finding ways to trim expenses and divert a bit more towards long-term goals. I anticipate hitting 10k in my general savings account, and diverting some of those budget dollars elsewhere. I anticipate eliminating my credit card debt and diverting those dollars elsewhere. I anticipate that my next raise will be put to excellent use, not just mysteriously disappear into expense-creep.

And on 1/15, I will know exactly how recent payroll tax and witholding table changes will impact my take-home pay. I just may have a few extra dollars to put towards my wealth building efforts.

Yes, definately optimistic.

I have a general savings account, a "piddly" account (change from my wallet), and a savings account specifically for our trip to Egypt (hopefully 2012).

I have decided to open yet another, and fund it with dollars I don't spend from my "cash allowance" budget item. These dollars are intended to pay for clothing, grooming, splurges, etc. I will open it at Ally. At the moment, I have $63 in my wallet, with 9 days to go until payday. On payday, I will withdraw $80 (as per my budget )and deposit whatever bills I have left. I will then transfer them to my newest savings account. I think this method will help me to not fritter away the dollars in my wallet.

What shall I name it? Helen? No, that seems silly.

I was playing around with mint.com yesterday, and decided to make some changes I decided that instead of tracking a lot of small expenses, I would lump them together and give myself a cash amount monthly to cover them. Further, I decided that I will not leave any amount unbudgeted, but will strive to leave the excess sitting in my checking account, to be used when irregular expenses crop up. If either the amount in my checking account or my cash on hand builds up to an amount I feel is excessive, I will then deposit some into savings.

Income:

Net pay 2970.00
Child support 452.00
Total Income 3422.00

Outgo:

Mortgage 1285.00
Utilities 428.00
Life Ins 42.00
Car Ins 125.00
Groceries 500.00
Pest Srv 31.00
Visa 400.00
B of A 60.00
Grooming 80.00
Gym 82.00
co-pays 50.00
Savings 100.00
Roth 100.00
Egypt 50.00

Total 3333.00

Unbudgeted: 89.00


Notes:

Utilities includes electric, gas, water, sewer, garbage, telephone, and internet.

Groceries includes household supplies.

Car ins is paid semi-annually.

Visa is not debt repayment, but my budget for gas, Netflix, newspaper, and any other charges.

I was pleasantly surprised to read about the 2011 Fica Tax rate. It is going down from 6.2% to 4.2%. However, the Making Work Pay credit expires. That credit was worth $400. For some this will be a wash. Those who earn more than 20k will see a bump in their take home pay.

Now, how best to use it?

Well tonight is bill paying evening, and I am encouraged by the difference 2 weeks of being careful with my spending has made already. I have just paid all of my bills for the month, made small savings account deposits, paid $500 towards Chase Freedom, and have 785.99 left. Not bad! I expect to hang on to about half of that, spend about half on groceries, gifts, and a few outings while son is out of school for Christmas break.

I still owe 1873.99 to Chase. Bleh. Hopefully, my Christmas bonus will take care of most of it.

I received a rewards check from my Chase Freedom card in the amount of $25. I intend to use it to take a little chip out of my mortgage.

Also, I received an email from HauserNet that I have been assigned a project and I should expect to begin receiving some decoy mail in the coming weeks. That income will also be used for mortgage chips.

I am going back and forth about using my theoretical Christmas bonus towards my Chase Freedom Visa bill 100%, or splitting it out 40/20/20/10/10 and transferring still more to my Bank of America Visa.

This Friday night, I will know for sure if my bonus is only theoretical or wonderfully real.

I have been thinking I need to have a standard allocation for extra income. I don't mean tiny amounts such as from decoy mail, but the occasional large chunk of extra money. In the past, I have decided on a case by case basis how to best use each cash infusion, but I want to stop doing that.

Here is my extra money allocation:

40% credit card debt
20% Roth IRA
20% regular savings
10% Egypt savings
10% mortgage

Once my credit card debt is gone, I will decide on a new allocation.

There is a reason I have been thinking about this lately. I usually get a Christmas bonus. I hope that will be true this year as well, but of course I can't count on it. Also, it is almost the time of year for seasonal overtime at my place of employment. I will literally be able to work all of the overtime I can stand for several months. The way it is handled is to record the overtime, then pay it all in one sweet check at the end of the high-volume period. In addition, a bonus is traditionally paid.

I have noticed that we hardly ever watch regular TV. Since Lost concluded, there's just not much on that's a priority. We love our Netflix account, we use that quite a bit, and it is very economical. So I called and cancelled, and that means I now have an extra $40 a month.

I'm working on my budget and will post it soon. I imagine that Mint will point out what is realistic and what works, and that will help me fine-tune as I go along.

Brown-bagged it again today, shaping up to be another no spend. Although, I did give my nephew $3 for bus fare this morning.

I discovered mint.com tonight. So far, I love it! We will see how I do.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work. I spent $43.44.

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, in all my adult years, I have never tracked my cash spending. I know I have to rectify this, as I have been overspending. I need to cut it out. In the past few months, I have taken on some credit card debt. There was a time in my life when I was swimming in credit card debt, but had been completely free of it for the last decade or so. However, I can no longer say that.