I’m always a fan of living by a budget, no matter your means. Budgeting allows you to be in control of your money instead of having your money control you. Your budget gives you the freedom to spend where you want because you are the one who sets the budget.
If you don’t prioritize your spending ahead of time (by budgeting), then you are likely to spend not according to your real priorities, but based on what is convenient, more enticing, or whatever opportunity comes up first.
Budgeting is especially fun when you have a goal you’re working toward (which should be the case most of the time). When we were paying off six figures of student loan debt, we were very motivated to carefully allocate our money because we were really eager to pay off our debt.
Now, nearly eight years after paying off that debt, we are focusing saving on taking some fun trips with our family. It’s easier to turn down enticing, convenient opportunities to spend money when we have a goal to focus on.
Interested in the details? Let’s jump into our family’s April 2024 finances!
Spending in April
When we first understood the concept of living on last month’s income, it rocked our financial world in the best kind of way. If you have no idea what that means, here’s a video walk-through. Or you can read up on how you can get started.
At the beginning of each month, we start budgeting by first adding up the income we earned the month before. In April, we budget and spend what we earned in March. We knew on April 1st exactly how much money we had to work with during the month. So on April 1st, we start the April budget by taking everything we earned in March and assigning it to our April budget categories.
We can’t see the future, so on the first of April, these dollar assignments were really just best guesses and goals. We’ve been doing this for years and can make some pretty good guesses, but every month is different. Our dollar assignments at the beginning of the month almost never stay exactly the same because our needs and priorities usually change during a month.
It’s normal for our spending plan to change during the month. The important thing isn’t spending exactly how much we had guessed at the beginning of the month. It would be silly to let our April 1st guesses dictate what we can and can’t do all during the month. The important thing is to not spend more total in April than we earned in March.
If we need to spend more in one budget category than we had originally assigned, that money has to come from some other budget category. We revise the budget categories to meet our priorities during the month, but we can’t just add more money to all of them, because the total amount stays the same all month long. A changed budget is not a failed budget. A budget needs to be flexible in order to be successful!
Here’s our family’s final April spending for all of our budget categories.
Giving
Tithing – $1,553 We start out the month paying a 10% tithe on our income. Like all of our April spending, our tithing is calculated on what we earned in March, which you can see in this Budget Update. We often get questions about this. You can read our thoughts on tithing here.
Fast Offering – $100 Each month we take one day to go without food and drink (fasting) and contribute to a program that helps people who need it.
Monthly Bills
Mortgage – $2,823 We have a 15-year mortgage on our 2200 sq ft house in Northern California. We’re so thankful to have locked in our mortgage interest rate at 2.375% when we refinanced in December of 2020 (all of the details and numbers are here.) We currently have about $174,000 remaining on our mortgage.
Electricity – $6 Last year we installed solar panels on our property, a $70,000 investment that we just finished paying for recently. For part of the year we produce more than we use, so we will also have some credit toward our bills in the winter when we won’t produce as much because of the shorter, cloudy days. Our electric bill is just the $6 unavoidable fee.
Car Insurance – $285 Last month we had 4 cars on our car insurance and now we have only two (though our bill doesn’t reflect that yet). In April our 2007 Honda Odyssey needed repairs that cost more than we wanted to spend on a car with 200,000 miles on the engine. We donated it to a local charity who will sell it for parts. Our Ukrainian family also began paying for their own car insurance in April.
Internet – $75 We have cable internet through Comcast. When we bought our home six years ago, we invested $5,000 into getting cable internet brought to our property. It has been worth it every single day since then.
Water – $75 Our water bill comes every other month, so in April we set aside half of what we expect the bill to be.
Garbage- $49 Like the water bill, our trash pick-up bill comes every other month, so each month I set aside the money for half of the bill.
Cell Phones – $212 We pay for eight cell phones: five for our family, and three for the Ukrainian family that we sponsor. Our phones are all through Visible. Visible is a Verizon subsidiary that offers no-contract plans with wifi calling, unlimited cell calls, and unlimited data on the Verizon network. We’ve been using them for years. You can’t beat paying just $25 per phone each month with unlimited data.
Music – $0 Our music teacher generously offered his time and talent to teach our 11-year-old Ukrainian girl free of charge. What a blessing!
Everyday Expenses
Food – $671 Our food spending was slightly lower than it has been so far this year. I made a lot of freezer meals early in the month which we enjoyed all month long. I’ve been trying to use food from the freezer to “rotate” our stored food. We eat at home almost exclusively; we don’t go out to eat or get takeout. We keep a well stocked pantry and freezer, as well as long term food storage.
If you need help getting your grocery spending under control, you can learn all about my strategies and method in my Grocery Budget Hero online course. Get $20 off with the coupon code STARTNOW. That puts your total cost at $39. I promise you’ll earn that back many times as you build your grocery budget hero skills.
Fuel – $733 Right now gas is $5.56/gallon at the cheapest spot in town.
Household Misc – $539 Our miscellaneous category was a lot of little things that added up to a bigger number than normal. We did a much-needed update of our 72-hour emergency kits. It has been probably 2.5 years since we updated them, so it was pretty hilarious to see the size of the kids clothes in the bags (and diapers for the youngest)! I brought flowers to people a few times. I renewed my book club membership and my annual quilt guild membership. We bought a computer dual monitor stand, vacuum cleaner filters, and other random household things. We pay for Scribd (Everand) every month, too, so we always have lots of audiobooks on demand without having to wait to borrow them with the Libby app or pay for audiobooks individually like with other apps.
Clothing – $0 – I didn’t spend anything on clothes aside from things I got for our upcoming trip (categorized under “Big Trips” below).
Animals – $66 We got dog and cat food.
Allowances – $130 We give our kids “practice money” as a weekly allowance. You can read all about why we decided to pay our kids allowance that’s not directly tied to chores, as well as all the details of when and how much in this blog post.
Sports – $37 In April we renewed an AAU basketball membership and paid entry fees to watch a couple of basketball games.
Sinking Funds
For our normal budget categories above, we take out any funds that are still left at the end of the month and send them toward our big financial goal. For example, if we started the month with $600 in our groceries budget category, but only used $520 of that, the other $80 would go toward our current major financial goal. Focusing all these extra funds from each category into one goal helped us pay off our solar panels several years early.
In contrast to the regular budget categories described above that we zero out each month, we also put money into the categories below. These are our sinking funds. Our sinking funds are categories where we set aside money for periodic expenses each month and let it roll over and build up until we need it.
The amount in bold is the amount we added to the fund this month, followed by spending notes and the current balance of each fund.
To answer a question we often get, we do not have separate bank accounts for these funds. We had separate accounts many years ago when we first started budgeting but we learned that was overkill. Instead, all of the money sits in our checking account. Since we spend according to our budget category balances, not our checking account balance, we’re not worried about getting the money mixed up. We seriously never even look at our checking account balance unless we’re reconciling the account. We track our budget categories and spending in YNAB, a budgeting tool we absolutely adore. Yes, you can adore a budgeting tool. Don’t believe me? Try it out. If you have been using Mint or something similar to manage your finances, you’ll want to read about our switch to budgeting with YNAB.
Medical/Dental – $300 added. We spent $115 on copays for one emergency hospital visit and several office visits. With six kids it’s never boring around here. Current category balance is $1,998.
Car Maintenance – $400 added. In April, we spent a whopping $8 for blinker bulbs. Much nicer than March! Current category balance is $456.
Christmas – $200 added. I spent $0 on Christmas 2024. Current category balance is $790.
Disability Insurance- $190 added We paid $2,217 for our annual premium, which leaves a little in this fund for next year. We will continue to set aside money each month for disability insurance so that when the annual premium is due we have the money ready. If Mike is unable to do his work as an attorney due to illness or injury, this disability insurance will replace about 60% of his current income. Since our income potential is our greatest financial asset right now, we want to have disability insurance to help us protect it. Current category balance is $280.
Life Insurance – $100 added. Our life insurance premiums are due each November, so we set aside a portion of the estimated total each month which will go toward next year’s premium. We had a $73 remaining after paying last year’s premiums. Current category balance is $573.
Birthdays & Gifts – $50 added. We spent $48 in April for gifts. We got our 9-year-old daughter this 3-D pen which has added a whole new level of creativity to her art. She loves it! Current category balance is $76.
Car Registration & Smog – $50 added. We spent $0 in April. Current category balance is $152.
Family Fun Fund – $75 added. We spent $102 for our whole family to attend the musical put on by the local high school. They were doing a show that was appropriate for the whole family (which isn’t always the case), so we wanted to show our support. The show was great and kept everyone in our group (ages 4-43) entertained the entire time. Current category balance is $11.
Home and Garden – $400 added. We spent $325 on a roll of field fencing to use on our orchard expansion. We also got a couple of new chains for the chain saw, which Mike has been keeping busy. Current category balance is $86.
Big Trips – $3,497 added. We originally made this sinking fund to save up for a fun family trip in 2025, but we are expanding it to include a trip we will take this summer, a trip that we’ve dreamed of for over a decade. We will need to average around $1,500 per month to make both our 2024 and 2025 adventures happen.
Of the amount added this month, $97 was credit card points and $200 was rebates on the two new phones we bought last month (we got a $100 rebate for sending in two old phones). We bought some gear this month including waterproof hiking boots for all 5 of us (including these, these, these, and these), hiking pants (these for the guys), backpacks that are just the right size, lightweight travel towels, money belts, and a battery pack . We also got passports for all six kids (only 3 will need them this year, but the others will need them next year so we just got them all at once). That alone cost $840! Current category balance is $1,986.
Investing
Kids’ 529s – $150 added. Investing just $25 per child per month for college isn’t much, but we are okay with that. Neither of us had much college savings when we went to college, but with scholarships, grants, loans, and jobs during school we were able to get our undergraduate degrees without debt. We may contribute more later, but right now we’re happy with small, consistent contributions. I looked at the balances recently and was pleased to see that this small contribution that is barely noticeable in our monthly budget has added up to over $15,000! If you want to know more you can read about how we decided to start 529s for our kids.
IRA (Steph) – $583 added. With this same amount each month, I will reach my $7,000 IRA contribution for 2024. Mike has about $1,300 each month deducted directly from his paycheck into the state pension fund for his retirement.
New Goal!
Since we finished paying for the remainder of our solar installation back in November, we have a new financial goal (in addition to our trip goal)!
With our Honda Odyssey gone, we’ll need to find a replacement vehicle soon. Originally we were set on another 8-passenger van, but since we have our 15-passenger van for when we all go together, we might get a car instead. The most we have ever spent on a vehicle is $5,500 (the 2007 Odyssey that we bought in 2019), so our goal of $20,000 sounds like a lot!
In April, we set aside $3,000 for our new van fund. With our current total of $7,162, we are 36% of the way to our goal of $20,000.
Income Earned in April- $19,671
Above you can see everything we spent in April (that we had earned and received in March.) At the same time we were spending what we earned in March, we were also (of course) earning money during April. At the beginning of May, we set up our budget to allocate spending from our April income.
This concept of getting a month ahead, has made such a huge impact on our finances! It takes some work to get to the point where you are living on last month’s income, but the effort is completely worth it!
The income section below shows the money we earned in April, which we won’t touch until May.
Attorney Income – $8,925 Mike works as an attorney for the state of California. This is his take-home pay after taxes, social security, his pension contribution, and health insurance premiums.
Rental Income – $0 For years we rented out a one-bedroom apartment on our property through Airbnb. We gave that up to take in a Ukrainian refugee family for a couple of years. We loved Airbnb and will likely go back to that in the future. If you’re thinking about renting out your space on Airbnb, check out this post where I talk about how much you can make on Airbnb.
Law Firm- $5,066 Before working for the state, Mike did estate planning and business transactional work. Over the last few years he has had a steady stream of potential clients, most of whom he refers to other attorneys, but he still occasionally helps former clients. He doesn’t cut himself a paycheck each month, just a couple of times a year.
Blog – $0 I only pay myself a couple times a year now. My blogging income took a major hit when I put the blog on the back burner during Covid to start homeschooling my kids. It is slowly recovering as I put more effort into posting regularly and all of the things I do behind the scenes. Thankfully the income still covers my fixed blogging expenses (which are a lot more than most people would guess) and allows me to pay myself a few times a year.
Child Care – $3,619 Back in August, I started taking care of the 2-year-old Ukrainian girl while her mom goes to English school (and her siblings go to regular school). The county is very slow with payroll so it has taken a while to get paid, but this month I was paid for seven months of child care.
Tax Refund – $2,061 Until we (Mike) actually did our taxes this year, we weren’t sure if we were going to owe or not. We had to change our withholding partway through the year when we figured we had used up our credit from installing solar. We were pleasantly surprised to fins that we did not owe anything. This is our portion from California. We should also be receiving a federal refund as well.
At the beginning of June come back to see how we use this income to fund May’s budget.
How’s Your Budget Working for YOU!?
That was a lot of words and numbers! Congratulations for making it all the way through our April 2024 family budget update!
Now we would love to hear from you!
Any questions on what or why we spend what we do?
What are your current financial goals?
Do you find that your budget is helping you reach your goals, or is it not working like you wish it was?
Let’s chat in the comments!
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