My husband and I are just getting to the break-even point, our net salaries are finally about to cover our monthly expenses, barring emergencies. I received a raise in February, and signs are pointing toward getting a bonus at the end of March. He finds out this week whether he will receive a raise and a bonus. It’s been a long couple of months since we bought the house and the cost of a roof over our heads went up 60% in terms of rent/mortgage payment alone.
When we bought the house, we knew that there would be a period of time where our expenses would pretty much outstrip our net take-home pay, but like most things in life, we didn’t realize that it would be this hard. Every day I try to be thankful that both of us are still employed and this isn’t anything compared to what others are experiencing, but some days I just want to stomp my foot and give up.
Making small changes one by one
On one hand, we’ve been making GREAT progress on escrowing our irregular expenses. We have four payments for our car insurance policies, the first is due March 3 and the last should be due around May 22. The first and last payments will be completely covered out of the insurance escrow account, and at least half of the second and third payments will be covered. This time last year I had to pull money out of the stock market in order to meet those payments, and I think that I might have even put one payment on a credit card. By this time next year, I hope to have a fully stocked insurance escrow account that will cover all payments in full.
I’ve been trying to remind myself that all these baby steps will get us ahead eventually. I can now pay the bills when they arrive in the mailbox instead of hastily sending a check right before it is due. We’re regularly saving money from each paycheck above and beyond our 401K contributions. We’ve started saving cash for a trip to New Orleans in late April (fingers crossed for bonuses – we might be able to go all-cash on this trip). We haven’t made great progress on the credit card debt, but we’re going in the right direction. We haven’t taken money out of the stock market to meet bills since June – not that it would do a whole lot of good these days. We’ve been able to rely upon our pantry and freezer to feed us when the budget is tight, which is extremely satisfying.
On the other hand, I really want to the debt and car loan to be gone, and have at least three month’s expenses in savings, but with these slim margins between net income and expense, it will be years before we can do that. We can’t cut expenses much more without selling our house, so we’ll focus on income. And not stomping our feet.
Comments