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Welcome To Our March Personal Budget Report!

It’s time for our (a few days late) March Personal Budget Report.

How’s everyone holding up in isolation? I can tell you that we’re ready to get back to life as usual, and we’re introverts! I feel my my extroverted or single peeps. Hang in there, guys. It’s not forever. We’ll get through this.

Isolation has done some interesting things to our budget this month. In some areas, we’ve hardly spent any money. While in others, we went way … WAY … over budget.

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, probably. 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.

March Income Budget Report- $8,024.18

Teacher Salary – $6,859.64 This includes both teacher salaries after the automatic withdrawal of taxes and health insurance.
Rental Income Property – -$1081.00 Our first home was a townhouse we paid under $100,000 for in good condition, which is unheard of in today’s market. When we bought 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. Since we didn’t have mortgage payments in February, and our income was disbursed in a weird way, we decided to put all the money we were paid into this month’s income report.
Extra Income Deposited – $0 No deposited money this month
Extra Income Paid in Cash – $0 We’re not listing much online now since our town is under a stay-at-home order.
Rebates – $83.54 I’m adding a category this month for rebates. Since I’ve been amping up some of my extra income sources, I’ll start tracking this here. This month, I cashed out $17.54 in credit card rewards toward my balance, earned $41 in Amazon gift cards on InstaGC, and won a $25 gift card through a twitter giveaway. While it’s definitely not making is rich, it’s $83 I would not have had otherwise!
- 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!

March Spending Budget Report - $22,852.01

We’re still slowly figuring out our new normal with household expenses. Sadly, this hasn’t been a great month to do so!

Monthly Living Expenses - $4,881.25

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 – $719.04 This covers the electricity, water, sewer, and pest control services. Even though we moved, we are contracted with our pest control service until summer. We also think our heating unit might need to be serviced. The bill was out of control this month! So far, our current billing statement is not nearly this high, and we’ve been running the air instead of the heat.
Daycare – $600.00 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. Baby Girl hasn’t been able to go, and she misses it so much!
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 – $35.78 This covers gas and tollway fees for both cars. It’s amazing how little we spend when we’re not going anywhere. This month, we only spent money to fill up my car one time before Spring Break started.
Car Insurance – $91.00 We decided to start setting aside money each month to cover 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 – $1,048.42 Okay, I’m a little embarrassed by this one… This is a little over double my normal grocery budget. We did spend a fair amount of money this month making sure we had a month’s worth of essentials. We’re also eating more now that we’re stuck at home. On top of that, we bought way more junk food than we ever do! That stuff adds up.

Debt Expenses - $1,175.74

This is money we spend in order to pay down previously existing debts and any expenses we have as a result of those debts. Just look at how much money we’re giving away every month!

Student Loans – $800.00 Ouch. Now that I’ve paid off one of my six loans, I’ve officially started to avalanche that payment to the next high interest loan! Mr. P&P has started paying extra on his, too. They were barely decreasing every month. Something seems off there, but until we can figure out what it is, we’re paying a little bit more.
Debt Repayment – $311.46 This payment is pretty sorry for us. We spent a lot of money on food, preparations, and boredom this month, so we didn’t have much left for debt payoff, unfortunately. We will remedy this in April.
Fees and Charges – $14.28 I haven’t stayed on top of statement closing periods, so I’ve paid finance charges as a result.
Medical Debt – $50.00 Our payments include some small installment payments on Mr. P&P’s hospital bills from October.

Other Recurring Monthly Expenses - $295.80

These budget report expenses happen every month, but they are not absolutely 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 – $85.59 This covers our internet and Hulu accounts. We’re taking a hiatus from Netflix to save a few bucks this year. With so many other options, we have never paid for cable! We also had to pay to transfer our internet service over to the new place.
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 freeze on our plan elapsed this month. I don’t know if we will continue to pay dues with all these closures happening.
Monthly Renewals – $45.00 We each have some subscription boxes for various hobby interests throughout the year.

Variable Spending - $1,510.38

These are expenses we may or may not have every month. They are somewhat unpredictable and variable.

Health Care – $179.91 Baby Girl had an appointment at the eye doctor.
Home Improvement – $280.73 We did a couple small projects around the house. Mr. P&P also did a storage building project with a friend for our “mudroom”. It’s just a hall tree by our garage door. We didn’t have to pay for the materials, but we did need to pay for an Uber and to replace a tire on the friend’s truck when it inexplicably blew up in our driveway.
Home Expenses – $309.21 We stocked up on some staples like dish soap, tissues, toilet paper (our normal amount, don’t worry!), cleaning products… stuff I knew would (and did) start to disappear when the first cases of COVID-19 hit my area. We also replaced our crappy printer so we could work from home, bought a storage unit for the garage, got a new dustpan, and bought batteries. Obviously, we’ve done some spring cleaning and organizing with this time.
Dining Out – $166.72 This was one million percent the result of boredom. We obviously have plenty of food in the house. However, we’ve ordered delivery a few times because we’re just bored and stir crazy.
Blog Expenses – $0 Nothing this month.
Baby Expenses – $127.66 My Amazon subscription service for Water Wipes renewed. I also ordered more Honest diapers since we were running a little low. Well, Fedex lost my package, so I bought some at the store. Then, Fedex found my package. Needless to say, we should be well stocked on diapers for this quarantine. Especially since we cloth diaper at home and only use disposables for naps and night time. We also got Baby Girl rain boots for her April birthday, but it rained and we couldn’t wait!
Classroom Spending – $26.75 Just a couple of small resource purchases for my classroom and plans.
Digital Streaming/Media $0 Nothing this month.
Gifts – $0
Hobbies and Entertainment – $0
Other Spending – $380.31 Shampoo, conditioner, Primal Pit Paste, which has since switched to Pretty Frank, and a pair of comfy lounge pants. I did spend $326.16 to get our emergency kits, go bags, and emergency food stores restocked. Want to know more about that process for us? Check out this post. I used some cash from my savings to cover this cost.
Savings – $39.09 The world the way it is, we decided to save what little money we had left over this month 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 emergencies. I have a feeling this number will be higher in the coming months.

Budget Report Goals Progress

I had a feeling that our March budget would be a little bit blown when I started to realize the world was going to fall apart. Our pantry was still a little slim from the move in February, and I had a feeling we’d be stuck inside as shelves were cleared. I didn’t anticipate our ridiculous grocery spending.

That being said, we weren’t super frugal. We bought way more junk food than we ever would. Excepting perishables, we shouldn’t need to stock up on much this month. Hopefully, the grocery budget will look better in April.

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. Hopefully, the tenant in our rental is similarly fortunate. As amazing as it would be to waive that expense, we’re just not in that position. If we can still collect rental income, we need to. If not, we’ll have to figure out what to do next.

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 53.6%

$18,361.24 / $39,558.61

We are shooting for a goal of payoff in 2 years! Just 1 year, 5 months to go.

Our payment this month is pretty flimsy, especially compared to last month’s $8,500 payment! April should be better.

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 3.7%

$5,322.53 / $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 13%

$12,277.00 / $14,111.92

We’re not putting extra here yet.

Student Loan Payoff Goal

Debt Paid 24.1%

$61,131.33 / $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 -39.3%

$407,299.63 / $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 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 Coronavirus altered your budget or plans? What are you doing to stay on top of everything?

What goals are you working on, and what kind of progress have you made?

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