This week has been rough.  I hope we never have another year in which M’s birthday, Valentines day and Chinese New Year are in the same week.  Add two snow days to the mix and I am one worn out mama.

But let’s get down to business anyway. This week Mr. A and I started our Dave Ramsey online classes. As we watched the first video, the differences between Mr. A and myself could not have been more obvious.   Mr. A* sat up straight in his chair and attentively filled in all the dumb blanks in the workbook.  I, on the other hand, played with the IPOD, posted on Twitter and fidgeted in my chair.   (The only other class I can remember taking was a swing dancing class oh so many years ago.  Mr. A took notes in that class too…NERD.)

We have watched three videos and so far, we are pretty familiar with the material that has been covered (use cash, don’t use credit, have an emergency fund that is never used).  Even though we know that the principles are right, both Mr. A and I have balked a little at the implementation.

We are people who use our credit card for almost EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE we make. This has worked for us, because it lets us track all our expenses.  We pay the card off in full pretty much every month too.  We don’t carry a balance.  Mr. A particularly likes the points we get for our card which put money into my retirement account.

In other ways, though, using the card for everything doesn’t work for us.   We admit that the credit card allows us to cheat on our budget.  Our worst areas for cheating are groceries and restaurants.  In theory, we have a $50 a week family restaurant budget, but one good sushi dinner or dim sum brunch blows through that without a second thought.  We also are susceptible to the slippery slope of lunches out.  Both Mr. A and I are supposed to get $10 a week, but we regularly go over that too (especially Mr. A with business lunches).   And Target?  Target is like a money black hole.  Can anyone get out of there spending less than $100??  (Obviously, a lot of people can, but *I* have a hard time doing it on a regular basis.)

One of the first baby steps in the Dave Ramsey program is to create Basic Quickie Budget.  I am assuming this will be used soon to figure out our 3-6 months of living expenses for our emergency fund, but for now it was just a good tool to get our conversation started.

You know me, always willing to share a little TMI, so I am going to post our Quickie Budget here (with Mr. A’s permission).   This isn’t what we spend every month, but it is a pretty good approximation of what we think will be an average month without cutting back.

If TMI makes you uncomfortable, look away now.  Also, please refrain from criticizing our line items.  I know there is a lot of fat that can be trimmed from this budget, but we are trying to get a good starting point to work from.

AmFam and Mr. AmFam’s Quickie Monthly Budget

School Loan Debt                       $ 667

Rent                                                 $1100

Utilities

• Electric                              $  131
• Water                                  $   40
• Gas                                       $   91
• Cellphone                          $ 116
• Cable**                               $ 135

Food

• Groceries                           $ 495
• M’s school lunches         $  40
• Mr. A’s work lunches    $  80
• AmFam’s lunches           $  60
• Restaurants                      $ 250

Transportation

• Gas & Oil                             $ 175
• Repairs & Tires                $ 200
• Car Insurance                  $ 115

Shopping

• Clothing                             $ 200
• Target                                 $ 200

Other

• Life Insurance                 $  75
• Preschool Tuition          $ 135
• Entertainment                 $ 120
• Chinese lessons               $ 120
• Other lessons                   $   40
• Medical***                        $  400

Minimum Total Monthly EXPENSES:     $4,985

I know, I know.  OMG, we spend so effing much MONEY. And this would be our beginner GOAL budget.  Sometimes we spend even MORE.  GACK!   It stresses me out just looking at this list.

After we worked out our budget last night, Mr. A and I decided we are going to begin the transition to using cash for the items we know we cheat on: Groceries, Lunches, Restaurants, Target, and Entertainment.   We are going to make the transition a little at a time, though, because we usually budget Mr. A’s paychecks to pay these bills after the fact rather than pulling the cash out before hand.

To get a little more cash on hand, we are going to start out with a month of radical no-spending.  I usually do that every January and June, but we didn’t do it last month because of the move.

So there it is.  Our beginning point.  We want to get started staying on a regular budget before we start cutting things out and feeling deprived.  Getting used to cash is going to be HARD.   I never, ever have cash on hand.  Not even a few dollars.

I know this will be good for us, even if it is challenging at first.   It is in my nature to be a money hoarder, but it is easy to ignore those impulses when the plastic is so readily available and I rarely see the final bill (because Mr. A handles that end of our finances).

Here we go.

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*who I must admit is more than a little skeptical that he can learn anything from Dave Ramsey

**Cable/internet/landline/tivo

*** L’s beautiful but very expensive eyes.