The Budget is ~DONE~ !!!

Whew. It took hours and hours and hours, but I have completed our budget for the next year and I think it's something we can live with. It'll take some getting used to, but it'll work.

Let me take you back a little ways ...

Tom and I both make good salaries. Well, I make a good salary whereas Tom makes about half as much, but he makes some kick ass commissions, which brings his totals right up to mine. We're pretty much 50/50 in what we take in.

Tom and I also have some very bad spending habits. I like wear mostly gap/old navy, but I'll admit to my occasional $500 handbags and $200 designer jeans habit. Tom likes to spend just as much on his own vices (tattoos, sports memorabilia, shows, snowboarding, etc.). We are also both VERY guilty of compulsive buying patterns. It's not unusual for me to stop by Target for a set of towels and leave with $700 of "stuff". It's not unusual for Tom to stop in a sports store with a brand spanking new snowboard setup. We would just throw this on our credit card which we had always just paid off each month.

Add to our spending habits the other things we had to spend money on too. IUI cycles, IVF meds, the IVF cycle, FET meds, the FET cycle. The surgeries. The acupuncture. The testing supplies. The vitamins. The supplements. True, we were lucky to have some of this covered under insurance, but adding up all our costs, they still reached a little over $10,000. Then, of course, we were blessed with conception and I needed a new maternity wardrobe because I've never been "big" pregnant in the midst of winter nor "new" pregnant in summer. And then we find out we're pregnant with a ~boy~! That meant creating an entire new nursery for a boy! A new boy wardrobe! New toys fit for a boy! And like I said, we've got bad spending habits. I could have made due with a billion different choices to outfit his room, but all I had to do is simply "stop by Pottery Barn Kids for a look" and out I walk with $700 here and $500 there. I'll admit I'm terrible. Oh, and since the nursery took up our guest room space, I deemed it ~necessary~ to buy a brand new bed so there would be a place for guests to sleep (we'd take baby in our room during visits of course), complete with matching PBK bedding and comforter. And the matching PBK throw rugs to pull the whole room together.

Beyond these types of purchases, we also spend a ridiculous amount of money on "normal" monthly bills. Where I used to budget groceries and clip coupons, I'd just blow $400-600 on groceries every few weeks. Our directtv bill was outrageous with the payments for NFL ticket, UFC fights and MLB Extra Inning charges, not to mention the bajillion movie channels I deem "necessary". I have a storage unit I really don't need just because I wanted to have a home gym in my garage so I needed everything else out. And yet, I pay for a gym membership! So much just gets charged to us without limit.

We are simply spending way above our means. Oh yes. I knew this but we just continued to charge those cards for our shopping trips and use all our incoming cash on our monthly bills. I just assumed we'd simply buckle down, get back to a budget and pay off our cards.

I started to add things up.

And then I re-added everything up because, well, what I found just couldn't be right.

But sadly, it was right. We. Are. In. Debt. Big time.

My biggest surprise wasn't the amount of credit card debt we have right now, I was pretty much expecting that. (although I didn't think it'd be quite so much, but I can't say I'm blindsided.) But in working out our monthly bills which includes ~everything~ besides credit cards ("allowances", gas, groceries, daycare, household bills, mortgage, insurance, car payments, you know - everything), we only make $14 more per month than what our bills are!

Actually, that sounds worse than it is. When I figure our incoming cash flow, I do ~not~ count Tom's commission checks, tax refunds, my yearly bonus or the four "extra" paychecks we receive each year. This will be our saving grace, as this is what we'll need to use to pay off our credit card debt. AND, it's what we'll use to pay 6 months of a 50% increase in daycare costs for when all 3 kids are in daycare at one time.

I know I'm giving out way too much information. Not that I'm telling you any details of actual income dollar amounts (the spending $ amts were just to make the point of how fucking stupid I am). And I'm NOT writing all of this out as some way of bragging, in fact, it's for the exact opposite reason. I'm embarrassed. I'm really, REALLY embarrassed. And I kind of feel that in order to get through this, I first have to admit my faults.

The new budget starts immediately and I think I have a pretty good system. It's actually the system which worked for us in the beginning years of marriage, when we both made jack shit and we were saving for our wedding. I know the system works and I know how it can keep me honest. I know how it simply doesn't allow for cheating without having to fess up to any extra spending to make room for it. I also know I'm still leaving some wiggle room at the beginning, because it would be hard to move from spending freely to an immediate 75% cut.

I sat down with Tom tonight and explained it all. It's also printed out in black and white and displayed within our home so we won't forget about it. He's cool with it and I'm relieved. If we stick to my plan, we'll be 95% out of debt by 12/09. This means no new cars like he wanted for next year and staying in our little house for at least another year. But we need to do this. Especially if we want to provide the kind of life we want for our three children. This is big.