I haven't updated in a month! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! We celebrated with the kids early, so we had several days to just chill at home and stay out of the nasty weather. Now, it's Christmas shopping time. I honestly need to try to do this earlier next year.

I've been trying to stick to the new budget. Seems to be going okay. I can't wait to finish off the auto loan. Also, if DS gets the job he's interviewing for today, he might be in the position to be given his car outright because they will be able to afford the insurance. We'll have to see because he'll have his student loan repayments start in a couple of months. They will also be paying more for daycare, so we'll just have to wait to let them have time to adjust their budget. They've been paying on their insurance, but I had them stop when their daycare kicked in and DS lost one of his jobs for the season. This one will be a steady position.

Our budget is divided into three sections. The first is housing, auto payments and utilities. Most things are about the same every month, so I have them as sort of fixed items. I try to have a few dollars left over each month, and I have been applying those to my mortgage.

The second section is food, entertainment, gas, etc. Things that fluctuate. I don't know why I included our medicines in it, but I will probably move a couple of things around. I try to save what I can in each category and that money goes into the challenge. I also put our credit card payments in this category for some reason. Probably because I don't consider them a necessary expense. The sooner they are gone, the better! I am going to apply the auto loan money to them as soon as possible.

The third section is savings. Things like auto repairs, eye and dental funds, and so forth. I put those numbers on a separate sheet with a breakdown of how much is accumulated over the months. I also finally realized I needed to move those monies into a separate account until needed. So far, so good. I have used the auto fund a couple of times for tires and such. I also have all the insurances in there. We have so many kinds of insurance. Property, flood, wind, life, auto, etc. I created separate funds to keep track of it all.

I like this layout better than the old one. I have each section adding itself up and subtracting from the section budget total. That way, I don't have to keep getting out the calculator to see what is left. According to Hubby, Math is our friend. Hubby can do all kinds of calculations in his head. I need buttons.

No matter how hard I try, I never totally stick to the Christmas budget. I think I am already over. Sticking to it is something that I'm going to shoot for next year....