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Analyzing the Year so Far

August 14th, 2014 at 02:21 pm

When I analyze the year so far, we're over budget by about $1700. (The way I do this is to use numbers for last year for the remaining months, which gives me an overall year to look at, but it means I still have August through December to "correct" things).

The $1700 is still less than the surprise medical bills I had in the Spring, which means that we're working on getting those paid for by shifting other budget items, and that makes me feel good. Basically, those medical bills account for the budget bust for this year.

So I looked at how August through December might go in order to make a plan.

Obviously, and easy way to get the budget back in order would be to stop contributing to our IRAs for two months, but I don't want to do that; we have money in the bank (EF) and so we don't need to do this. We can whittle at the $1700 instead.

So, the plan:
- limit cash for D to $40/month
- don't buy any new yarn (knitting budget down to zero)
- maybe skip the Nutcracker this year (just talked to F and she is very willing to make a less expensive substitution)
- F has a lot of new clothes from Grandma, and her winter coat fits and so do winter boots, she has the next size up on soccer cleats, so I don't think we need much for her clothing budget this winter.
- work on grocery costs (don't have to reduce much from last year)

When I do this in my excel spreadsheet, I end up with a $3,000 surplus! Yeah!

2 Responses to “Analyzing the Year so Far”

  1. snafu Says:
    1408032245

    Welcome home. your time overseas sounded wonderful.

    Being pushed over budget by surgery and it's $ 2,500 deductible as well as increased costs for electric, food, vehicle operation and maintenance makes your $ 1,700 overage totally understandable. Do you add in 4% for inflation? What value do you ascribe for grandmother's wardrobe gift to F? Is it totally fair to crunch it down to a $ 3K overage? would you add $ 1K each to D, F and yourself? Is the holiday activity schedule published for a Nutcracker substitution?

    ...just some random thoughts

  2. Buendia Says:
    1408032949

    I haven't added anything for inflation because, unfortunately, we haven't gotten raises. I may raise my salary slightly for 2015, and D might get a raise. I like the idea of an overage! It might not end up being that much, but it's good to have. I'm going to raise the medical budget next year even if we don't use it and the money stays in there (I should probably do an HSA). F says instead of Nutcracker she may want to do something in Albuquerque. No holiday stuff published yet, but there are lot of things associated with the University which may be cheaper. There are tons of free events here, too, so our holidays are very full anyway.

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