A Penny Saved

The end of March officially was the end of the first month in our Total Money Makeover adventure. It’s officially been a lesson in our personal finance dilemma.

Our results are slightly mixed but certainly lean towards the positive. We had a little bit of trouble setting our initial budget and had to make some adjustments through the month. Of course, now that we have a better feel for our expenditures, we should be able to budget a lot more accurately in the coming months. This month will be a little difficult because we have a few extra expenditures that we don’t have on normal months. One of our cars is due for licensing as well as my wife’s drivers license is due for renewal. Hopefully, that will be offset by some extra income and a reduction in grocery expenses.

We’ve also decided to try and compensate for our beginning deficit and include a close approximation of that in our budget. That seems to have made things a little more realistic. Our budget no longer seems to have a huge surplus that we cannot find.

We’ve completed our budget for April and while it does seem tighter than March, I think we’ll end up better than we were in March. As of right now, we’ve completed the first phase of our Total Money Makeover. Our emergency fund is now fully funded at $1000 and as long as it stays that way, we’ll begin our debt snowball in May.

So far, things are looking pretty good for us. Going through the steps for the Total Money Makeover has really turned our finances around. Well, not really our finances, but more how we deal with our finances and manage our money.

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