I consider myself an intelligent woman. Granted, I have made stupid choices....but as a whole, at least 22 of the 24 crayons in the box are sharp.
When I have worked out my budgets, it is based on the typical month pay (give or take). For example, if they cut hours at G-man's part time job, his weekly paycheck will be a little lower. But it usually balances out in the end. His main job paycheck is fairly static (I am curious to see what that number will be with tax differences, medical insurance, and FSA differences). The biggest wild card in all of this is OVERTIME.
(NOTE: We agreed that OT is NOT a side hustle)
In the past, overtime pretty much got sucked up into life. Mostly, when we went over in a budget category.....food being the number one culprit. How stupid we are.....
Now, as soon as there is overtime on a paycheck, it gets moved out of the main account immediately. It isn't budgeted money. No more getting sucked into the darkness of the great abyss. It will get held until all of the budgeted expenses are paid, and then that EXTRA money will go where it belongs....as an EXTRA payment to something.
G-man had to get up at 2:30am.....yes, you read that right, 2:30am....to be at work for 4:00am this morning. He will be earning OT all day (and without going into detail about his job, this is the stuff he LOVES to do), and he will work his regular shift tonight. Today will be about 10-11 hrs of OT (unless they are able to finish early). At time and a half, that is about 15-16 hrs of regular time......2 days worth......or about 20% extra.
That EXTRA money....because that is what it is.....will make an EXTRA payment somewhere.
(I am being vague about the somewhere because of the new mortgage refi. Depending on when it closes, and we get the escrow money back from the current loan, we will have to see where we are at on the snowball. The current plan is that the month off from our mortgage and the escrow will pay off CC1 and Student Loan 2, and part of Christmas nonsense. If OT hits before the mortgage closes, then OT will be used for the above stuff, and the mortgage stuff finishes off the above, and the remainder goes to the next debt victim).
I probably make things harder with all my little piles. But it works for me. I need to visually see it all broken out. So for now....the piles stay. His OT today will probably be in his paycheck on Jan 24, so we have a few weeks before we will see it. But I am looking forward to it!!!
Smart move with the OT. My husband works at a car plant here in Canada. There are a lot of people he worked with that based their "budgets" as though OT were a given. When the auto industry nosedived in 2008, there was ZERO overtime almost all of 2009. Fortunately, the bit of money sense that I have has always said that OT was NOT included in our budget. So glad I had the foresight to at least realize that. Hope the mortgage thing works out. We do not have Escrow in Canada, so not real sure how that works?
ReplyDelete@Theresa - I tried to budget for just my job and G-man's main job (not including the part time job) and there is no way it works right now. Ideally, the second job would all go to debt. But alas, not so much. At least OT, which is hit or miss, can be used effectively.
ReplyDeleteThe mortgage is moving along swimmingly. Our escrow is for our property tax, city tax, and home owners insurance, and when we pay the mortgage monthly, a certain amount goes into a holding account for these expenses. Then the mortgage company pays the bills accordingly. Taxes were due on Jan 1, so if our current mortgage company pays them, then we will only get a small amount back from the escrow account. If they weren't paid by closing, then the new company will have to pay them, and we will get a larger escrow amount back. It is all just going to be determined by the closing date. So until that is settled, I am not counting my chickens before they hatch.
Ever play with a mind map? It helps me keep track of buckets and ideas:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.myjourneytomillions.com/articles/building-empire-mind-mapping/
Its a way to track stuff on a blank canvas