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| $5 Clearance Toy we picked up... Made for a cheap and fun family day in the park! |
With that being said, I'm going to mention the 2018 Tax Reform... because it's changing my monthly BUDGET.
It looks like the new tax brackets have reduced the amount of money we have withheld from both our paychecks each pay period.
Hubs and I have always kept our payroll deductions on the conservative side since we never know what to expect with his annual profit share check. We had also planned to change our withholding to reduce the amount of our federal tax return this year... but with the new brackets and the elimination of personal exemptions in favor of a larger standard deduction (we itemize so we loose out here), plus increases in child credits... we have decided not to adjust our withholding until we get a year to see how the changes go when we file for 2018.
You may have noticed your last paycheck for January was a little different from the first. This was because the tax brackets went into effect about the middle of the month for most agencies.
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| He loved chasing the darts everywhere... and there were 2 types and one set went the length of the park almost! |
- It turns out my paychecks will be growing by $46.08
- Not all of that is coming from tax reform --
- We voted to increase our pension payments from 8% to 9.5%, in exchange for more money to cover health insurance benefits (I gained in this decision). My first check had the extra benefits on it, but not the increased pension... So the paycheck that had the new tax formulas, was also the first paycheck I started paying 9.5%.
- All of that combined together, gave us a net increase of $46.08 a check. So the tax reform was probably closer to $30
- Hubs' paychecks would be increasing around $24, but we upped his ROTH IRA contributions to 9%, so we are only seeing $17 increase.
But it's a pretty significant jump for us and helps us breathe a bit. So hubs and I did the same thing we do with any "windfall." We had a budget meeting and decided how to allocate it to. I know that sounds simple, but if you don't give your dollar$ a name and a purpose, they extra money ends up just disappearing on junk and crap...
We didn't do anything massive with it. We consolidated a couple of things in the budget, rounded off some uneven numbers, and then we decided to mark the additional funds to replenish savings for the moment... We know he's got dental work to do and we haven't replenished our medical savings yet, so stocking this aside until our tax returns and profit share checks come in, will be pretty handy.
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| Embracing my inner Katniss Everdeen :) (yes, we decided to listen to the Hunger Games on Audible... We are super big Audio book fans so it's nice to see it finally have its own line item in the budget. |
So for now, I present our:
2018 Budget
Spending categories:Mortgage (P&I) $764.00
Property Taxes $280
HOA: $350
Church Tithe: $648 + $20 Fasting
Netflix: $19.16 (Streaming and DVD)
Gasoline and Car Reg: $295.86
Daycare: $900 ($450 bi-weekly)
Discretionary: $102
Pocket Money $78 ($39 each)
Audible: $15
Electricity: $100
Internet: $63.99
Groceries: $332.00
Little Dude: $86
Eating Out / Adventures: $100
Saving for annual and semi-annual expenses:
Christmas Savings: $50
Car Emergency Fund: $100
Car Ins/ Home Ins / Earthquake Ins: $180
Cell Phone plans, phones and electronic accessories: $75
Clothes: $48
Birthday/Gifts: $50
Replenish Savings (Dr, Roxy, Vacation, Slush Fund) $171.03
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