South County Girl: July Budget and Annual Goals

July Budget...

I'm posting one large combined budget this month instead of a paycheck by paycheck break down. Hopefully I'll be able to share more details with you all about this later this month, but for now you can all guess at my aloofness.

Giving $454
Fast Offering: $10.00
Mortgage (Includes Property Taxes): $771.99
Additional Mortgage Principle: $220.00
Roxy "Dog" Savings: $50.00
Groceries & Food: $275.00
Prescriptions & Doctor Savings: $50.00
Birthday Savings: $50.00
Discretionary/Clothes/Things/Eating Out: $160.00
Vacation Fund: $100.00
HOA: $262.50
Insurance (2 Autos, earthquake, homeowners) $129.00
Utility Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet): $230.00
Gasoline/Auto: $200.00
Christmas: $50.00
Kaiser- Health Insurance: $178.00
SCG Roth IRA: $275.00
SCB Roth IRA: $192.00
New Car and Auto Maintenance Savings: $355.00
Long Term Savings: $220.00
Pocket Money: $40 SCB, $40 SCG
Technology Upgrades: $220.00

You'll notice some distinct changes from last month to this month besides making sure every dollar now has a name instead of just savings. *wink*

We have added a $50 a month pet savings account for our little pup. This will also be what we will pull from for food and other items we need to buy for her.
We are also upping our grocery budget a little bit more ($25) now that we have some more money coming in and i'd like my husband to stop eating so much junk and convenience food.
We have also combined our clothing, eating out and discretionary budget to $160.00 a month to help us balance eating out and buying things.
For this next month, we are keeping our cell phone and bill allotment the same because we haven't cancelled our smart phones yet and we'd like to have this money just to cover any accidental fees that may happen. Once our cell phones drop off, we are going to up our internet speed, keep a bit more for electricity usage and actually use our little wall unit to stay cool this summer. Once all the changes are made, any leftovers will be added into our gasoline budget.
We are bumping up my Roth IRA contributions because we will now be aiming to put the full $5,500.00 away for me this year. We have also decided to add a Roth IRA for SCB with him putting in 15% of his income.
There is a new Long Term savings account. We will be using this money after we get SCB's dental work done to beef up our Emergency Fund. Essentially this money will be the start of our future Baby, Bigger house, home improvement, etc savings account. Once we get our $400 escrow check returned to us, I think we will already have enough money for SCB's dental work.
We are also going to be adding in a new car/auto maintenance savings account because that's the next large expense that will need to be replaced in the next few years... and our last goal for the year. If we start paying the monthly payment to ourselves now, we will be able to pay cash for a new car down the road. This will also help us budget in those pesky once a year car registration and smog fees to just have money every month going in to savings... (more on that later)
I promised SCB if we cancelled our smart phones that we would start saving up for tablets, a gps running watch for me, and some various other things like a portable WiFi system if he is still able to make and sell his pens at the farmers market now that he's working full time. So we have added a temporary technology savings account.
We added a small vacation and trip fund to our budget so we can start to save up for a nice vacation for SCB and I... or just a bunch of little day trips throughout the year.
Pocket money. $40 a month for each of us to spend however we want with no accountability... because everyone needs a little mad money.

Phew! Talk about some changes. Essentially after making sure tithing and retirement are covered, we are taking each of SCB's weekly paychecks and putting them towards 4 over all areas.

Big ticket item - A new car. We have committed to no new loans or borrowing money with one exception, a house. Everything else can be done by saving money and being patient. We don't want to owe people money... which leads to our next area.
Paying down debt - Our mortgage is our only debt. Period. While the interest rate is low because we just refinanced, 3.75%, we should still be trying to pay off our loan obligation faster to build up some equity for 2 reasons. First, we can't get that type of return on liquid money right now (money sitting in a savings account or a CD) and with where we are in life, our money needs to be liquid and easy to get to if its not for retirement. Secondly, we would like to keep our options open to either sell our place and use the proceeds for a down payment to get something bigger in a few years if the market is in our favor at the right time, or continue to pay it off to have the flexibility and equity to either refinance again and rent it out for a positive cash flow and move somewhere cheap to wait out a bad market if prices go down, etc.
Long term savings- I mentioned that we are currently in a position where our money needs to be liquid... and here's why. First, SCB is currently a Temp worker. His income could disappear at any moment. We may also want to start having a family in a year or two... and kids are expensive and there is only so long you can have a kid in a one bedroom condo before you need more space for sanity... and if that were the case, most likely SCB would either be a stay at home dad or work part time and take care of our future bundle so having more in savings to get us though that transition period is important. We may also need to replace some home appliances and get some new furniture (considering all my furniture is almost a decade old, are hand me downs, or garage sale and freebie finds).
Spending/technology- There's always something you want to save up for that's a few $100 once or twice a year. This will help us do that!

Remaining Financial Goals