Saturday, September 7, 2013

Slacking Off

It has been a very long time since I have written anything on our blog. I have thought of it many times but it has not happened. So what's going on, you might ask...

Budgeting is hard work and it SUCKS at times. We were just hanging out thinking this budgeting thing was easy. Well it's not. I was thinking "I know this" and my husband admittedly was burying his head in the sand. 

Then I got into two fender benders - both my fault - and we had to rent a car AND pay for the deductibles on our insurance. For all of that, we did not budget and pulled out our MasterCard again. I was also buying a few things online with my Visa. In other words, racking up the credit card debt again. Then we went on vacation - which we did not budget for and put it all on plastic again. 

It seems like we have fallen back into our old patterns. We are now in our overdraft for a few months, temporarily, and we have credit card debt to pay too.

That is very difficult, and a bit depressing, to admit. We were both bound and determined this year was going to be different - and it was for a few months. Then "unexpected" things caught us off guard. I don't know if we should have used our emergency fund for the repairs and then built it back up. We also had an $8000 payroll debt that we had to get a loan out for and pay back - which we have.

It just seems like we are behind the 8-ball again. We have committed to each other that we are going to "meet" once a week to discuss our budget. We have not done that - and that was wrong. If you are in a relationship, discussing your money issues together is vitally important, in my opinion. If you can't discuss your finances with that person then who can you?

So, our new plan is to meet once a week, get back into the "You Need A Budget" and "Dave Ramsey" podcasts and bogs. As they say in the YNAB world, it's time for a Fresh Start.

2 comments:

  1. I was faced with a dilemma a few months ago when I hit the max on our credit card with no intentions of paying it off in a reasonable amount of time. Fortunately, we only had a $500 spending limit on it. I made the choice to cut up the card and delete any saved payment information online as a means of self-control. We are slowly paying it down now and I don't intend to ever use it again. And I agree, talking through finances feels like the hardest step sometimes but it is so important to planning and sticking to a budget. You can do it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Stephanie! Your words of encouragement mean a lot to me.

    ReplyDelete