Jan 16, 2008

Keeping track

It’s payday today and yet a chunk of what I received today went to bills, not to mention the overdraft auto-payment. I pay rent and stash money in savings on payday. The next day I pay credit card bills, if there’s any. Of course there is and hopefully not for long! Whatever’s left is what we live off of for the next 2 weeks.

The spreadsheet I created tracks income and expenses for this year only. I even added charts just to get a visual of our progress (and regress). I decided to limit it to a year to see a specific time frame for our progress and to also observe the changes in spending habits once our child is born. I am also able to do savings projection. At our current savings-expense ratio, we might not reach our $20,000 savings goal by end of this year but it would be really close. My projection didn’t consider debt payoff projection and salary increases this year, which only mean more saving/investing power. That’s not bad, is it?

At the same time, though, I’m able to see how much goes to bills and debts. It’s a little unnerving to think that those digits are just part of life. It is the way it is. If we don’t spend then we don’t live. That’s the thing, goals are much more exciting to take on with challenges along the way.

Over the next 11 months, my life will have constant change with the baby growing each day. I can only say that things will be different but I can’t gauge the details of it. No spreadsheet can track that sort of life change. I’m going to be a mom! I’ll be an addition to the pf mom bloggers soon! The contents of my blog will soon include other expenses unknown to non-parents. I hope that will mean excitement rather than boredom for my readers.

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