October Round Up

Even though we're 1/3 of the way into November, I shouldn't neglect poor old October just because I've been busy. So onto the wrap-up!

October, being a long month, is pretty challenging. Add on to that the fact that My brother, brother-in-law and sister have birthdays within a week of each other at the end of October, and the budget gets a little strained. But, fortunately, we have a little stretch in our budget.

This month we paid $1836.29 towards our credit card debt, which is $934.71 short of our goal. However, we made huge mental progresses and paid off our worst debt, that we've been working on since February. At the end of October, we have paid off 57% of our total credit card debt, up 4 percentage points from September. Our motivation has really picked up as well.

My income was finally over for October (by $658.30, thanks to extra hours and commissions), which will be extremely useful in keeping our November numbers on track. Our gas expenses were over by $30.87, which is essentially one fill-up and due to some bad timing of getting gas on Halloween. Should have waited one day! Our groceries were over by $19.53, and our fun money by $22.28, which totally disproves my theory of fudging the budget. I guess that's what happens when you try to cheat the system.

As for the emergency fund... I set up a high interest bank account, and then never transferred the money over. It's still waiting patiently in my checking account. This is a high priority on my to-do list this week.

While the numbers look OK, I'm pretty disappointed in myself. We pay a lot of money toward our debt each month, but nowhere near our goal of $3000. I have $2771.00 budgeted toward debt payment each month and try to make up the difference, but the last time we hit our goal of $3000 was in June. Not that much has changed in our finances that we shouldn't be getting to that number. I think we were just burnt out from being in super frugal mode that we rebelled a little. Not to mention a few mistakes along the way. Paying off our line of credit and transferring to the 0% card were huge for our motivation and will get us back in the fast lane. Same old story and I need to put my money where my mouth is. November is off to a great start with the extra paycheck and already making a big payment, so I am feeling very positive moving forward. Hopefully planning ahead for Christmas will prevent any bumps in the road.