I quite enjoy reading everyone's journals and I'm hoping that by keeping my own money journal, I'll be encouraged to keep our goals in mind on a regular basis.
Dh recently quit his job and is working temporarily at another position until he decides what he really wants to do. This was all done with my total support as he supported me when we had our 3 kids and I wanted to be a SAHM. I have always worked part time, close to home, and around everyone's schedule, but have recently been offered a full time position for a job that I love, although the pay is not super. So in the last 2 months, our position has somewhat changed. Financially we are fine, albeit a little tight, something that we have not been in quite some time.
When we were first together and in university, we were super poor. After we had our first son, we once again had nothing extra to spare. Even in these lean times we managed not to have any debt other than our mortgage. We now owe about $90K on a $370k mortgage and have about $85K in retirement funds.
We still save $150.00 a week for retirement, are putting aside 200-300 a month, building our reserve funds (we currently have 2500, but would like to see that go to 5000, and then start on a freedom account), and have a separate account that we put 600 monthly into for yearly expenses ie. car insurance, property tax, Christmas, vacation, and house insurance.
We have never spent more than we made, but I know that we can always save more than we do...I tend to fritter money away on eating out, convenient groceries, and I don't know what else.
My new plan for the month of September is to take $700.00 at the beginning of the month and use it for groceries and all spending money--if we can do this for our family of 5, I will be amazed, surprised, thrilled etc!