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Welcome To Our April Personal Budget Report!

It’s time for our April Personal Budget Report.

Yes, I’m posting March and April a week into May. I don’t know what happened last month! The post was written and ready, but never actually posted. I’m going to blame internet connectivity problems. We’ve had lots of problems with our internet connection since the shelter in place orders and working from home started.

Oh, yeah, let’s talk about working from home. Ya’ll, Mr. P&P and I both teaching elementary school from home without childcare for my 2 year old is not my favorite. It has been a lot to manage. Hence, the month long hiatus. I have been focusing on surviving this crazy time. Fortunately, we only have a couple more weeks to get through. Then, we’ll be able to bring our attention back to some self care, and some blogging!

I will say that never leaving the house plus the general lack of two day shipping was pretty good for our finances this month!

If you’re looking for some reading material related to world events right now, I’ve got a few that might be helpful.

So, let’s look at last month’s earning, spending, and saving!

Check out these links to see previous Budget Reports!

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Why Create A Monthly Budget Report

The first real budget I set was back in 2014 when I made A LOT less money than I do today. I had been idling along for years in my retail service job, scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, and making very little headway. Way back then, it wasn’t even debt reduction or budgeting that got me interested in getting my finances under control. An interest in prepping lead me there.

In learning about preparedness, I began to realize that if there were ever an emergency, I was going to be out of luck. There was no savings to speak of, cash or otherwise. Stocking up was out of the question. The debt I had accrued was taking up all my expendable income and then some. I thought I was okay with money, but it turned out, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. At best, I was JUST okay. So, I started to research.

I probably learned about every system under the sun. Cash envelope systems, spreadsheets, percentages and ratios… There was so much to absorb. I made a lot of mistakes. To be honest, I still do. But I did find a system that worked for me, and it made a difference almost instantly. In finally creating a physical budget, I could see that my money was being wasted all over the place. It was no wonder I couldn’t catch up.

If I could share only one takeaway, it’s this. You do, in fact, need to set a budget and put it on paper! Yes, technology counts as paper here!

Why Am I Sharing My Spending And Earnings?

Simply put, it helped me when others showed me what they were doing. I can only hope that sharing my own monthly budget report can help others out there who aren’t sure where to start.

I also think it’s really important that we talk about money. Like, as a society. The secrecy and shame surrounding spending makes it so much harder to figure out a system that works for you. There should be less fear of judgement and failure around money. If I can contribute to expanding the conversation, I want to!

Now that I have a child, I am realizing she learns so much by watching me. The best way for me to set her up for success is by showing her what’s out there and how it could be handled. It might not have taken me until I was almost 30 to realize I didn’t actually know what I was doing if there had been more conversations about healthy spending going on around me.

Budget Report Details Before We Start

Everyone budgets a little differently. There’s not really a right or wrong way. Just what works. Mr. P&P and I don’t track our budgets exactly the same way. But we’re working on getting there.

For a little consistency on our budget report, I’ll calculate monthly spending based on purchases made during the calendar month.

As for income, I work on a zero based budget using last month’s income. Basically, this means that all the money I earn this month is budgeted and spent next month. It’s an absolute life saver, especially if money is tight or inconsistent. Having the ability to borrow from my future self has saved my life a few times! Want to learn more? Check out this post where I break down how and why I budget this way!

Mr. P&P is still budgeting the current month’s income, so we do a little of both. Since most of our income is salary, this really only effects extra earnings and rental income.

April Income Budget Report- $10,038.72

Teacher Salary – $6,959.64 This includes both teacher salaries after the automatic withdrawal of taxes and health insurance.
Rental Income Property – $55.54 Our first home was a townhouse we paid under $100,000 for in good condition, which is unheard of today. When we bought our old house, The Pit, we decided it was better to keep the town home as rental income rather than sell it to put money toward the new house. We stand by this choice today! This is the money we receive after paying any management and repair fees. There were several repairs this month.
Extra Income Deposited – $2,900 Our stimulus check.
Extra Income Paid in Cash – $100 We sold a bike trainer on Facebook Marketplace.
Rebates – $23.54 I wasn’t quite as diligent with, well, anything this month. I cashed out $17.54 in credit card rewards toward a purchase and earned $6.00 in Amazon gift cards on InstaGC.
- I’m loving InstaGC right now. Since I’m stuck at home anyway, I stream videos on my computer while I work, clean, and take care of Baby Girl. Then, I try a couple of surveys in the morning and at night. I’ve had better luck qualifying for them than many other sites I’ve tried. Here in a week or so when I hit $50 cashed out, I’ll be able to start redeeming my cash through Paypal instead. Money in my pocket!

April Spending Budget Report - $11,031.02

We’re still slowly figuring out our new normal with household expenses. Since we have yet to experience “normal”, it’s still hard to estimate our regular expenses in advance.

Monthly Living Expenses - $3,285.67

This budget report category includes typical monthly expenses that come out of our budget basically every month. These are our “basic living” expenses that we need to pay in order to get through the month.

Mortgage – $2152.66 This is our total mortgage payment on our new house, including insurance, escrow. etc. It’s a lot higher than we paid at The Pit. However, we wanted to stay in our area, and we now have considerably fewer rodents living with us.
Utilities – $362.61 This covers the electricity, water, sewer, and pest control services. Even though we moved, we are contracted with our pest control service until summer. This really reinforces our suspicions about the heat needing some work. We’ve been at home all month and running the air, but our electric bill was cut in half this month.
Daycare – $0 Paid during the school year. We are fortunate to know an incredible lady who provides services for teacher’s kids at a very affordable rate. Sheltering in place means no childcare. While it’s great for the budget, Baby Girl really misses her friends and teachers.
Car Payment – $234.35 On top of the home issues last summer, Mr. P&P’s 14 year old car died right in the midst of everything. The car seat doesn’t fit in mine, and we were basically living in a hotel, so we were stranded. We purchased a used car through Hertz Rentals because we knew it would be maintained, and their process is very straightforward. But we didn’t have the cash saved up after foundation repair, so we had to finance. I am still driving my 13 year old, paid off sub-compact.
Gas, Toll, and Other Transportation Expenses – $0 Anyone else pay nothing in transportation expenses last month? The cars were last filled in mid-March, and they’re not being used very much.
Car Insurance – $91.00 We decided to start setting aside money each month to cover estimated insurance premiums. It will actually need to be renewed in June, so we will put money aside each month to cover this expense in a sinking fund. This way, the cash is available when we need to pay our premiums again.
Groceries – $445.05 Way better than our thousand bucks last month! We’ve cut way back on the snack foods to save money and waistlines. We have been purchasing staple items like milk and eggs in slightly larger quantities when we find them. Organic milk especially has been harder to come by.

Debt Expenses - $2,473.96

This is money we spend in order to pay down previously existing debts and any expenses resulting from debt. Just look at how much money we’re giving away!

Student Loans – $400.00 Mr. P&P is still making his payments. (Federal student loans older than 10 years DO NOT qualify for COVID related assistance!) The cost of my loans will go into savings for now. Since my loans are not accruing interest, I will set aside my monthly payment for 6 months. Things are so uncertain right now, and I want a buffer in savings if there’s an emergency. If all is well, I’ll make a 6-month sized payment in September.
Debt Repayment – $1,985.84 We decided to pay off another credit card a little bit early since many of our expenses were low. We continued to make minimum payments on the other cards.
Fees and Charges – $13.12 Since we paid off my last credit card, I’m hoping this will stop happening. I just can’t find my focus lately.
Medical Debt – $75.00 Our payments include some small installment payments on Mr. P&P’s hospital bills from October.

Other Recurring Monthly Expenses - $297.60

These budget report expenses happen every month, but they are not vital spending categories! It’s the stuff we could get rid of and survive if we needed to.

Phones – $89.43 This is both cell phone plans.
Digital Media, Streaming, and Internet – $96.39 This covers our internet and Hulu accounts. We also had a trial of CBS All Access that we let elapse into one month of payment so we could finish up Star Trek Discovery. It has since been cancelled.
Rock Climbing Gym – $75.78 We love rock climbing together! But when we learned that Baby Girl was coming, we stopped attending and haven’t picked back up. The gym is closed, but we’re still being charged. We don’t want the place to go out of business, so we haven’t said anything about it.
Monthly Renewals – $36.00 We each have some subscription boxes for various hobby interests throughout the year. It’s lower because one of the businesses was required to shut down for a bit due to the pandemic.

Variable Spending - $4,973.79

These expenses change every month. They are somewhat unpredictable and variable.

Health Care – $20.00 Vitamins.
Home Improvement – $257.80 Screws, PVC pipe, hanging hooks, power strips, some tools, and a shower filter for home projects. Potting soil, some pots, and plant starts for gardening. We’re hoping to put in some raised beds this summer but didn’t want to take the risk with the extra costs until we knew we would be financially stable and job secure.
Home Expenses – $292.14 We bought some extra paper products that were back in stock and renewed Amazon Prime. I also got some color changing LED string lights for decoration and some ribbon.
Dining Out – $81.24 We ordered food in a few times. Just like last month, this was largely out of boredom and a desire to keep some favorite local restaurants going, not because we needed to.
Blog Expenses – $0 Nothing this month.
Baby Expenses – $195.93 Baby Girl got a big girl bed for her second birthday, and she loves it! We got this loft bed, and put a mattress in the space underneath the loft. She’s still too little to sleep up top, but we put some string lights around the top, and she’s in love! We also got mattress protectors and two sets of sheets. Half the cost of the bed was covered by gift cards and InstaGC earnings, and it should last her for years to come. I also had to buy her some warm weather clothing. I’ve never NEEDED to buy her clothes before, but with a quarantined birthday, she didn’t get all stocked up like normal.

One year update: Baby Girl has finally moved up to the loft and is still loving this bed! Totally worth it.

Classroom Spending – $0 Nothing this month.
Digital Streaming/Media $0 Nothing this month.
Gifts – $0
Hobbies and Entertainment – $0
Other Spending – $117.29 I had planned on coloring my hair over the summer, but with school going virtual, I decided to dye it at home this month and went purple using this brand. The color took well and started super vibrant, but it does seem to fade fast. For $10, though, I can’t complain. We also had more shampoo delivered, stocked up on cheap coloring books and comics, and added a couple more items to our long term emergency stores. Check out this post to learn more about our emergency preparedness process.
Savings – $4,009.39 The world the way it is, we’ve chosen to save extra money to cushion the emergency fund. I don’t think we’ll need to worry about losing our income in the next few months, but our emergency fund is really only ready for handling small problems. This chunk of money comes from my student loan payment, our stimulus check, and what was left over in our budget. A lot of this will be used to pay down debt when things begin to settle.

Budget Report Goals Progress

I’m super excited that we paid down another card and beefed up our emergency savings! Would more have been better? Sure thing.

In May, I’ll be looking to pare down a little bit of boredom spending, continue to improve our eating habits, and get more comfortable with our emergency preparedness, both materially and financially.

Things are definitely more stressful right now. Teaching from home… caring for a two year old while teaching from home… feeling stir crazy… general anxiety… It’s been a lot to manage.

We feel fortunate, though. Everyone in the P&P household is still healthy. We still have jobs and get paychecks. Our income hasn’t changed yet. The income from our rental has been shrinking, and we’ll probably have to come up with some extra cash in the budget to make up for it soon.

I know that not everyone out there is as fortunate. If you’ve lost your income, or it’s been cut drastically, I recently wrote this post about how to cope right now if you didn’t have an emergency fund to fall back on. I outline a bunch of ideas to help cut costs and increase income while times are tough.

What Does The Future Hold?

Facing your financial burdens head on does not feel good, but it is important if you want to grow. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t know it exists. No matter where you are, figure out what you’re starting with so you can decide where you’re going.

If you need help getting started, well, that’s what I’m here for. Check out this recent post that will give you a step by step guide to help you make a plan and get out of debt.

We longingly dream of the day we can say we are entirely debt free! I don’t know if that day will come, but why not dream big? Today, our goal is to make progress. But someday, we want to have as much control as possible over how we use our money. So, I’m giving you a breakdown below of our major debt goals and monthly progress. Who doesn’t love a nice graph?

All totals except the credit cards go back to the original loan amounts, and the credit card total comes from our calculations in September 2019.

The percentage bar shows the percentage paid off.

The numbers beneath show the total remaining / original loan.

Credit Card Payoff Goal

Debt Paid 58.6%

$16,375.70 / $39,558.61

We are shooting for a goal of payoff in 2 years! Just 1 year, 4 months to go.

Another card bites the dust this month! Even though about half of our payoff has been the result of debt shifting when we refinanced our rental mortgage, we’ve still made some pretty good progress. We might actually make our two year goal!

Medical Debt Payoff Goal

Debt Paid 16.4%

$11,885.63 / $14,169.05

This includes only the debt I took on with the birth of Baby Girl. The cost of her conception through treatments and prenatal care were paid in cash, as was the hospital down payment. It’s just the debt accrued after delivery complications and emergency services that I couldn’t deal with due to a mostly unpaid maternity leave. A lot of this is currently in collections because I just don’t have enough money to settle yet, but I’m chipping away.

Medical Debt Payoff Goal #2

Debt Paid 5.1%

$5,247.53 / $5,526.63

This is the debt we took on as a result of Mr. P&P getting an infection that went septic and needing hospitalization in October.

Car Payment Payoff Goal

Debt Paid 14.2%

$12,104.27 / $14,111.92

We’re not putting extra here yet.

Student Loan Payoff Goal

Debt Paid 24.5%

$60,817.62 / $80,567.17

Someday, we might qualify for debt forgiveness due to becoming public school teachers. We’re not really putting a ton of eggs in that basket though. If I can get them paid off earlier, I will. A lot of the progress I made here happened in the years where my income was fairly low, so I’m pretty proud of that.

In January, I officially paid off one of those loans! Slow progress is still progress.

Mortgages Payoff Goal

Debt Paid -39.1%

$406,727.32 / $292,407.00

I left our previous mortgage total because I thought it would be interesting. Mostly, it’s painful. This move increased our debt total in this category significantly. There’s no guilt here, though.

We had to make the best choice for our family’s health and finances. The best choice for us was to get out and start again somewhere else . Between the purchase of the new home and the refinance on the rental property, we took on a lot more mortgage debt. It’s weird, though. For the first time in a while, we feel like we can breathe. Not literally, of course. We’re still fighting off all the immunity problems likely caused by rats. But we see a light at the end of the tunnel and an opportunity to actually make some progress.

We are definitely gambling a little bit. Not much can go wrong, and the budget will be tight for at least a year. Of course, with Coronavirus, we have some anxiety about this change. I couldn’t imagine, though, self isolating and working from home in a house infested with rats! We still think the move was a good choice.

The mortgages are last on our list of payoff priorities. They’re pretty huge amounts for us, but we really would like to pay them off early and save some interest!

Now, It's Your Turn

If you haven’t sat down yet and faced your debt head-on, I really encourage you to do it! Figure out what you owe. Write it down. Stare those numbers in the eye and acknowledge them! Here’s a step by step guide to help you get started.

You can’t fix a problem you don’t know about!

What was your spending month like? How has the recent pandemic altered your budget or plans? What are you doing to stay on top of everything?

How are your personal finance goals coming along? We would love to know!

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