Mrs. Micah nearly cried at work today when she saw how much we spent in August. So she called Mr. Micah, who was soothing and pointed out that it’s less than our income.
But now I’m going to post it on here, with comments.
I made the pie chart above, showing how much we spent on things. Dark blue includes housing, utilities, phones, cable, etc. Burgundy, business purchases, should fall to around $100 per month, instead of the $317 represented here. I was just getting some new things for the workplace. Didn’t have any business clothes or shoes.
But now that’s rectified. I’ll still have to spend money on metro, however (though once I’m hired, that should be coming out of my before-tax pay, in a special program which will save some money).
Totals for August from spreadsheets
Food and Groceries………………..$226.94 15%
Charitable Giving…………………..$40.00 2.5%
Business Purchases………………..$317.06 21%
Fabric Purchases…………………..$29.63 1.9%
Housing/Utilities/Phone……………$830.97 54%
Dates………………………………$52.77 3.5%
Misc……………………………….$24.33 1.6%
Gas…………………………………..???
Total……………………………. $1,521.70 100%
Of course, this doesn’t include gas for Mr. Micah’s car. But he normally buys that on his own card, and he didn’t put the receipts in the box (which is perfectly ok because he didn’t know I wanted them and I didn’t know I wanted them. So I asked him to do that from now on and he said sure.). I also didn’t include his car payments or credit card payments. I do know that he paid them, but I haven’t looked into how much. That would probably make up the difference between our expenses this month and my take-home. But then we could subtract the extra business stuff and still come out ahead.
My estimated monthly take-home pay is $1680. It’s supposed to go up when I’m hired (speaking of which, this is my 4th week here. They said something about a month of temping, so I’m going to talk to Bobbie about this on Friday or next week. On Friday I’m getting some sushi downstairs at the happy hour $1 sushi in celebration of 4 weeks, so maybe I can broach it when I ask her about the selection).
Back to take-home pay. So we came out $159 better than it. I wasn’t working all month, but we do have some savings we were using to get going.
Now that Mr. Micah has started teaching, we’ll have his income as well! If we live comfortably at this rate, then that’ll give us money to save! Let’s assume that Mr. Micah’s $5,000 stipend for this semester is taxed at 20%. That gives us still $4,000. That’s about $1000 per month (a bit more for the first three and a bit less for December). If we can save even half of it, that’d be amazing!
My goal is to set up a 401(k) through the company, once I’m fully hired. Probably in mutual funds to start. Contribute the max we can get matched. Then put what’s left over into a Roth IRA. Find some good way to invest it in there.
I also plan to up charitable giving (though I’ve been finding ways to give through things I already have, like the quilting stuff). I just wasn’t sure what our finances were, so I didn’t want to do it.
Two further notes: First, dates this month meant 2 dinners with friends at an inexpensive place and 3 trips to Borders for coffee. Not a bad cost, eh? Second, misc was a $4 Tau cross necklace from a Franciscan monastery and Mr. Micah’s birthday present.
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