Fall is in the Air

As summer comes to a close, I have a few things to be thankful for. The most of these is the fact that the girls have been well for about five months! This has been a huge relief to us emotionally as well as financially. Recently, they did have a cold but they were able to kick the fever in four days which is unheard of around here.

So, what have we been up to this Summer? Well, more of the same it seems :). We have been able to pay everything down across the board. No new things have been paid off, but the entire mess is lower. One good thing is that we have been able to keep Terra's check out of our budget so it is truly extra income when it comes in -- which rocks. We also have our emergency fund almost completely built back up :)

Speaking of the emergency fund, there was one thing with Ramsey's plan I didn't think I needed to do, and that was the envelope system. It's a simple enough concept -- you make a budget, then withdraw the money you need for each category and put it in separate envelopes. Then, when you need money for something in that category, you just take it from that envelope until it is gone. I thought to myself "hey, I have Quicken, I don't need this, I can keep track of it." The problem was my rational brain was making that decision, not the irrational, hungry, I want side of my brain that apparently can't estimate well :).

So, after stumbling with a few problem areas in the budget, I pulled those out into the envelope system to better mange things. In particular, the Food (out to eat), Fun, and Clothing categories where the problem children. We would always go WAY over in these areas by underestimating how much we had spent earlier in the month. By pulling the money out ahead of time, it's something you just don't have to think about. If there's money there, awesome. If not, you're brown bagging it. I personally like not having to deal with those receipts as well. I've got one transaction in Quicken instead of 14.

Because of this, we now have a bunch of extra money in the Fun envelope (who says you HAVE to spend it, right?). As that money piles up, we are planning on a cool trip later to take the girls out and pay cash for the whole thing. Amazing what you can do when you plan for stuff :)

I've got three bills in the snowball lined up for the next 6 months depending on how things go, but I think 6 months is a reasonable goal. One of the items in there is my car, so that's got me pretty excited :).