I occasionally feel the need to share the amount of funds that have moved in and out of the joint checking account that my wife and I share. It is therapeutic for me, but only a little bit.
I just got the statement today, which made my anxiety level rise somewhat. Like many months, perhaps most months, more money left our account than came in. I have shared the same info on Middle Class Guy before, like months when five grand more left our account than came in.
Well, I can say without any doubt that my wife and I do not really abide by the many, many gurus and bloggers who recommend or even demand that you make a budget and stick to it. We buy and pay for things as they come up as needed and, in many cases, as wanted.
Yes, we indulge our kids but mostly we are just paying for and doing the same thing as the Joneses in our social circle. As a matter of fact, we spend far less and definitely travel less than most of the other families who we associate with. But we also make less, as many of them are in the twenty percent that I only aspire to.
How then did $13,871 leave our checking account over the past thirty days, while only $8,870 made its way in?
I asked myself the same thing when I took a look at our account today.
I read blog posts, articles and books about financial matters and the economy on a nearly-daily basis.
Therefore, I know that the amounts that I reported coming into and leaving our accounts are fairly middling. I have read frugal mommy bloggers who spend $1,500 to $2,000 total in a month, but they typically do not have children and live in low-cost areas. Some do have a young child, but they are able to obtain their food, shelter and other necessary items for very low cost. Perhaps they have one- or two-bedroom rentals or small homes that they own in a state like Kentucky or Tennessee.
On the other end of the spectrum, I read the financial accounts of investors who make more than the total that came in and out of our account (about $22,600) on a monthly basis. Some of them make far more on passive investments like rental income, book sales, capital gains, consulting and the like. Those are the bloggers that I admire more than the super frugal people who get by on less than what my family spends in a week for the entire month.
However, I must explain how such a large amount left our account considering that I make just over one hundred grand per year plus another grand or so on my eBooks and the $7,500 or so that my wife earns. We make over five grand per year on dividends and capital gains, but always reinvest that and have never spent a penny of those funds. With less than nine thousand going into our account, how can we keep spending ten to fourteen grand per month more than half the time?
For one, I calculated that over $5,535 of the $13,871 went to our son's college, accounting for a full forty percent of the expenditures. That covered both the January and February payments.
I paid $1,200 to my wife's Visa, which is about half of the money owed for her and my son's trip to Disney World to support our daughter on her band trip and enjoy a few days out of the Chicago winter. I paid off the $761 balance on my own Visa card and we paid off nearly $400 on my wife's Kohl's charge card, thus $2,347 went to pay off debt service.
Speaking of debt service, our mortgage company took their $720 on the first of the month. Also on the first of the month, $400 automatically went into our daughter's Bright Start 529 account.
I also preach and act on Paying Myself First, which I also did the first of the month, sending $200 to each of the two investment accounts that comprise my Roth IRA with T. Rowe Price: the Blue Chip Growth fund and the Capital Appreciation fund. Not to ignore my wife's IRA, I mailed a check for $250 to her Vanguard S&P 500 Index fund in early January. Thus, our investments totaled $1,050.
Everyone has to pay utilities unless it is included in your rent. As suburban homeowners, we pay Nicor every month for natural gas, Com Ed for electric and our Village for water and waste removal. Due to the cold weather, our Nicor bill was over $100, as was our combined water/waste removal bill. Utilities totaled about $300.
I leased a new Subaru Outback for my wife in November with a monthly payment of $267. Our Comcast bill, which I truly loathe, was another $170 or so automatically deducted.
We had to pay six months' worth of homeowners insurance, which ran just under $500, around the same time that I paid the six month premium on our new Subaru for another $365. So nearly $900 went to our "good neighbor" who actually was not there the one time that we needed it.
We spent at least a thousand bucks on groceries, but I do not have the inclination to add the total up. We did not cut down one bit on groceries.
We did cut down on eating out, only about a dozen times between January 10th and February 8th, which may be a new record for us for fewest times. Of course, I am not counting the three meals per day that I pay for at my son's college, where the food prices rival eating every meal at Disney World: ten bucks for a burger, ten bucks for an omelette, ten bucks for everything. Speaking of Disney World, our daughter spent four days there, just returning a few days ago, for the UDA national dance competition, so she ate all of her meals out for those days. Perhaps as a group, the four of us did not cut back on eating out so much after all.
After many years of not going to the dentist, I resumed the work on my root canal this past Wednesday. The entire thing is going to run me nearly a grand even with insurance; however, the receptionist allowed me to make a $300 initial payment, with the remainder due after I get the crown put on on the 21st of this month. As of now, I have a titanium rod covered by silver where one of my molars should be.
I hit the cash station three times, once for $300, once for $200 and once for $100. As the benevolent father, husband and mensch, I spread the wealth around. I gave my daughter about $150 in cash in addition to the $220 prepaid Visa card for her poms trip to UDA. I put some cash in my wife's purse and I generally paid cash for small things throughout the month.
Somehow, altogether these expenses added up to nearly fourteen thousand.
This month is not going to be any better or less costly for us, as Cook County property tax payments are due March first. Thus, a few days before that date I will be stroking a check for about three thousand big ones to the County Treasurer. I do not like escrow accounts and I do not want one. I had one long ago and they kept screwing it up. I would not mind owning an escrow company, but I do not want to keep my money sitting with one while they collect interest and then screw up the payment. Consider waiving escrow a mensch-like thing to do.
Whether you made $5,000 and spend $4,000 last month or made $40,000 and spend $50,000, you know the importance of balance, investing, hard work and providing for your family's future.
I also look forward to one day posting how much more came into our account than left it. At that point, I may feel as if I have fully achieved true Money Menschdom,
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