Into the Nitty Gritty

OK! It's time to reveal our financial situation here, so you can see what we are dealing with. I came from a family that always has lived paycheck to paycheck, increasing its expenses as the money came in. My parents could not pass on skills that they did not have. I learned to balance a checkbook in Home Ec. but that's pretty much it.

My husband's "Money M.O." (that's modus operandi) appears to be much like mine, if you make it, you should spend it...there's always stuff that comes up either that you need or that you've been wanting for a long time, right?

So our current situation. Income:

DH grosses about 57K a year.  401K 3%, matched, HSA account, plus other taxes and deductions (federal, medicare, vision and medical insurance...more than $400/month).
What actually got deposited into our joint checking account last year from his job: $37,539.
I bring in about $450/month ($5,400/yr).

Our monthly expenses:

rent  $450/mo. We get a really sweet deal on renting DH's dad's house. We've never bought a home.

electric $150/mo. (we have it averaged. before we did this, summers are around $300, winters $100

water $60

gas  $70

car ins $136

timewarner internet only $63/mo. it was an abysmal $86 but I called and got it reduced by $23/mo.

Sprint cell $200/mo. We're paying for two iphones: mine's got a balance of $333 left and his is actually a 2 year lease plan because he always gets the new phone when it comes out. We have 8 gigs shared data and unlimited talk and text. We typically use around 4 gigs. Keep in mind this in an area I'm thinking hard about and just waiting for the right situation to make changes. More on that later!

student loan $100

gasoline $275

food/grocery $450/mo.(was 650 but I was able to bring it down)

motorhome $100/mo.

home depot $130/mo. to pay back $780 balance in six months for interest free. Our oven went kaput.

2003 Toyota Sequoia $290/mo....we just paid that off last month! Sweet deal for us! We had to have a Toyota because my husband's a certified Toyota mechanic (free labor!) and it had to seat a buncha kids because that's what I do...I carpool and pickup kids from school. We used to also 'need' it to haul my horse and trailer around. Sadly but in a way gladly, I was able to let the horse and trailer go to new homes and use the money to pay down previous debts.

HSA $300/mo. which covers things like medicines, dr. visit copays, supplements . I think this amount is taken 'off' before you consider his final deposited amount per paycheck so not sure if you can consider this a true monthly expense off the bottom line.

tools: $100/month Hubby uses to replace worn or broken tools, drills, lights, etc.

Netflix: free (we use the in-laws account so we don't actually pay for this. Thanks mom!) 0/month.

Hulu $7/month

Redbox $15-20/month (because for my movie-fiend husband, no amount of free or $7/month streaming movies is enough) 

Pets $40/month. (six chickens and two rabbits) Chickens provide free eggs (we eat what we don't sell which pays for their feed)

Liabilities: 

$1,160 loan from parents for 2005 Toyota Camry LE  (update: paid that off).

401k loan balance: $1,474

(to pay off his huge tool cart work required him to have, and then the company got sold to someone else, and they rebuilt the shop, providing tool boxes, so now he has a huge one at home, in case he ever leaves this company and needs it for another job)
student loan balance: about $5,000 at 4% interest
motorhome loan (interest free) $9,800

Assets:
Toyota Sequoia valued at $8,000 ish
2005 Toyota Camry LE valued at $4,300 ish
401K: contributed in 2014 was $2,303. That doesn't sound that great. Total in the acct. is $21,000. That's a pretty abysmal retirement savings for our current ages, and we know it.
tool cart current resale value: $5,000
motorhome 1994 Winnebago Elante valued at about $18K

There is a weird discrepancy regarding income. If you take the amount actually deposited into our bank account from my husband's job, our total income should be a combined average of $3,578/month. But in reality, most of the time we are dealing with an actual take home amount of $2,240-2440/month. Somewhere, something is off (probably my understanding of how his paycheck is distributed between all the categories dipping into it before it is deposited) and I'd love to figure out what I'm missing here. Please comment if you have insight as to what I'm forgetting to consider.

Income adds up to a potential $3,578/month

Expenses add up to $2447

Difference equals to $1131 (totally MISSING money per month. see above.)

Are there any mystery expenses? Sure. Corner store trips would be one...if I had to guess, my DH spends about $15-25/week on beverages and snacks (read: junk food). I don't want to pick on him too much, besides, this is NOT about picking on people!! This is about being honest with ourselves and each other and finding ways to cut waste and optimize saving, right?! Right!

We used to eat out more but this happens way less because of my income reduction from what it was before (I quit watching babies full time and now only do the afterschoolers...for my health and sanity!) We eat out at fast food as a family maybe 2-4 times a month usually when we're on the run on the weekends working at the in-laws, or I'm too sick to cook dinner (which has happened all too frequently these last couple months), and my husband eats lunches out some days. I'll have to ask him how many days this happens and then convince him to cut it out (hopefully). I don't have my hair or nails done, I cut the kids' hair, and the kids have school uniforms which thankfully, there is a uniform swap each year so we just round out whatever we can't get from that, usually that bill comes to around $100/year.

And up till last month, another 290 went to the Sequoia, and we're done with that, so going forward it should be possible to do better.

There's always birthdays and christmas that comes up (we rarely spend more than $200 on Christmas).

Goals: To be one month ahead (using Feb's income to pay March's bills all at once at the first of the month)

To have a Rainy Day fund for unforeseeable expenses

To have money budgeted for each expense that we know will happen over the year (birthdays, Christmas etc.)

To be able to retire, ever.

This post is getting a little long, and I think I've given you what you need to know about what we spend and what we make to get your juices flowing. Leave your unbridled (but couth) suggestions in the comments, and we'll see if you throw anything at me that I haven't already been considering. I do have some changes in the works and I'll be sharing those soon, so stay tuned!