Tightening the Belt

It's official - we're a single income family. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm freaking out a little. We ripped off the proverbial band aid over the weekend to see where things really stand. And it wasn't exactly pretty. About a year and half ago, I did some preliminary estimates to get a sense for what our real expenses are and what a budget might look like. It wasn't great. I panicked for a few months and then put it at the back of my mind (shame on me, I know). We've been really good about getting debt paid off and prioritizing our expenses, but we have basically ignored living on a proper budget. Sure, there were aspirations to give it a shot, but those quickly fell by the wayside while we were still living on dual incomes.

With my contract job over and no solid future clients, we need to focus on living solely on B's income. Luckily, our bank has this awesome online software (for free!) that helps us track our spending and set up budgets for various spending categories. We've tinkered with this software on and off for the last couple of years, but now we'll will be heavily relying on it to help us stay on track. We exported the last few months of spending, averaged it out to one month and made some tough decisions to cut back in various areas to stay within B's monthly salary.

I am so thankful we laid some important groundwork by getting out from under all our credit card debt, paying off the cars, building up our emergency savings and establishing our "freestyle" account (funds for planned but irregular expenses like property taxes, Christmas gifts, etc.). What I find intriguing is that doing these things were not initially driven by the goal of me being able to stay home with Caiden. That plan didn't materialize until about half way thru these efforts. But had we not done these things, there is no way I'd be sitting here writing this entry today. Whatever that drive was, I'm extremely thankful it was there to get us where we are today. My only regret is getting into a mortgage that is better served by two incomes. Hopefully we can get the house sold and resolve that as quickly as possible.

So for now I have to say goodbye to shopping sprees, random trips/vacations, luxury indulgences (like my Massage Envy membership) and various other things. But as the initial shock wears off, I am starting to look forward to the challenge. Can we happily live without cable TV for the summer? What events and activities can we enjoy together that are free or cost little to do? How will this dual effort strengthen our marriage? Our family? I enjoy tracking performance (blame the analyst in me) and look forward to seeing how we're doing against the budget each week. How much can we save against the amount we allotted ourselves? Will we do better than I expected? But most importantly, we're doing this so that I can stay home with Caiden. That is something I knew I always would want to do. I am grateful we are in a position to make it work no matter how hard it will seem at first. It won't be forever, and it will be so worth it.

Please send positive vibes our way. We're going to need it while we adjust to this new little world of ours. :) (And please let us know if you have any money saving tips!)