Operation: Clean House- Week 1

One thing I have always heard is that consistency is key and apparently this isn't only true for parenting but also for cleaning. I have been using my new Excel sheet for cleaning and have noticed a great improvement. My motivation has increased since I am finally able to keep up with the ever dreaded laundry and dishes. Since I have been doing so well sticking to my schedule I rewarded myself by paying the babysitter to watch K and R on my day off so I could spend some quality time in the nursery and making progress in other areas of the house. I cleaned off kitchen cupboards, put all of the baby bottles in their cabinet, finished packing my bag and washed up all of the new baby clothes.

I also have tried to include K and R in becoming more helpful when it comes to cleaning up their messes. We have started having them throw away their trash and put their dishes in the sink after meals. I also ask them to pick up their toys before I even go cook lunch or dinner. They are also responsible for putting their clothes in their laundry basket, helping me sort laundry and matching socks.

K believes that she is getting too old for naps now that she will be turning 3, so I have definitely been putting her to work. She made all of her own birthday invitations today and helped me sort out the baby's clothes into her drawers. I cannot wait to put the finishing touches on the nursery and am excited to post our before and after pictures.

Preschool Schedule

As we are starting to dip our toe into the waters of homeschooling, I am trying to plan the smoothest way to make this transition without the girls having a whole new adjustment all at one time. I have been thinking about the current routine that we have in place and realized that it is not really conducive to beginning this homeschooling adventure, so I sat down to think about what was missing. I also noticed that we are having an over abundance of television throughout our day because it is hard for me to get housework done when the girls are awake. This is our new schedule that I am going to begin to implement while I am home with the girls, starting on Monday:

7:00 AM-7:45 AM: Breakfast, pick up dishes, wash table
7:45 AM-8:00 AM: Wash hands, brush teeth, wash face
8:00 AM-8:15 AM: Get dressed, put pajamas in laundry (if necessary)
8:15 AM-8:30 AM: Start a load of laundry (girl hand me clothes from the dirty clothes basket)
8:30 AM-9:00 AM: Circle Time (calendar, weather, review shape/color/letter of the week or month, sing a song and read a book)
9:00 AM-9:45 AM: Free Play (play with what ever they want)
9:45 AM-10:00 AM: Clean up toys from free play
10:00 AM-11:00 AM: Play outside (weather permitting- if it is too cold or rainy we will do a gym activity inside such as dancing, musical chairs, follow the leader or go somewhere in the community where they can be active)
11:00 AM-11:45 AM: Lunch, pick up dishes, wash table
11:45 AM-12:00 PM: Wash hands, go potty
12:00 PM- 2:30 PM: Naptime (I will do dishes, sweep kitchen, put laundry in the drier and complete other chores designated for that day)
2:30 PM- 2:45 PM: Potty time
2:45 PM-3:30 PM: Snack time, pick up dishes, wash table
3:30 PM-3:45 PM: Wash hands
3:45 PM-4:45 PM: Play outside (weather permitting)/Craft or errands 
4:45 PM-5:00 PM: Potty time
5:00 PM-5:45 PM: Dinner time, pick up dishes, clean table
5:45 PM- 6:15 PM: Bath time
6:15 PM-6:30 PM: Jammies
6:30 PM-7:00 PM: Snack and educational TV show/cuddle time
7:00 PM-7:15 PM: Read a book
7:15 PM-7:30 PM: Potty time, brush teeth
7:30 PM: Tuck in to bed! Good night

Onto February- Budget update

So January has come to a close and my husband and I were reviewing our budget like we usually do and we realized that for the past two months (December and January) there were some categories that we were having a really hard time staying within the set amount. Some of these areas were: blow money, baby, other, eating out, Target, Sam's Club, etc. so we discussed our goals for paying off our debt and the purpose of sticking to the numbers we had chosen to put in our budget. Then we discuss whether they were realistic or not. We made a few modifications but also decided that we are going to use a strict envelope system.

I had heard about an envelope system before from some people but never thought it would ever be something we needed to do. But, my husband does get cash tips from his part-time job and we were finding that it was easy to spend this cash even though it was already put into our budget, which was not only causing overspending in some areas but discrepancies in others. So we calculated what our estimate (on the low end) of his monthly tips will be and then chose which areas were appropriate for using cash. I then made up an envelope for each category and labeled how much cash goes into each envelope. For example, my eating out is labeled "EATING OUT- $40". Then I got out our stash of cash that was a mixture of his left over tips from January that hadn't been spent, money from selling some thing we had not been using and left over Christmas money. I then filled up each envelope with the predetermined amount and set them aside to use when February began.

Now that February has begun we have decided that any cash that comes into our house through tips, selling things, birthday money (for us- not the kids), etc. will be put aside for the envelope system. We will then divide up the cash on February 28th into the respective envelopes for March and any "left over" cash will be cash that is above what was in our budget and will go into a separate envelope to be deposited into our bank account quarterly and put directly onto debt.

The final change that we had to make for this month was adding new categories and redistributing money. We noticed that an excessive amount of money was going to the "OTHER" category so we wrote down all of the expenses and tried to find similar items. From this we found that we needed to add a category for the oldest two children for clothes as they are now in sizes that we have not been able to "stock up" on. We have continued to keep our "OTHER" category but will keep a running list in our notebook of the "OTHER" purchase and continue to look for patterns so we can add new categories as necessary.

Seeing Red!

This week we are going to talk about the color red. We are going to eat something red at every meal this week and even make red cookies for valentines day and few art projects for the girls to give to daddy and their grandparents for valentines day. My schedule I have made is as follows:

Monday:
Breakfast: Red Froot Loops
Lunch: Strawberries
Dinner: Fish Sticks with Ketchup
Art: Red playdoh

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Wildberry Muffins with red food coloring added
Lunch: Papaya
Dinner: Chicken with red sauce (homemade sweet and sour sauce)
Art: Valentines (Finger painting hearts with red paint)

Wednesday (I work so we will only have dinner as a family):
Dinner: Chili with Red beans (Kidney beans) and tomatoes
Cooking: Red sugar Cookies with Red frosting

Thursday ( I also work so we will only have dinner as a family):
Dinner: Buffalo Chicken Dip with Franks RED Hot Sauce
Art: Hearts with red paint and a toilet paper tube shaped like  a heart

Friday (Once again I have to work so we will only have dinner):
Dinner: Lasagna with red sauce
Reading: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish
*Wear Red clothes to work/babysitters: I will let them pick out their outfits hoping that R has learned what the color RED is!

Finally, each day we will be watching the Meet the Colors DVD by Preschool Prep Company. It can be found at http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/p/mtc/index.php and is also available for digital download.

Hopefully I will be able to share pictures throughout the week, since it seems to be letting me upload them now!

Weekend of Peace and Quiet

Today, my mom is going to pick K and R up from the babysitters because I have once again failed my glucose test and have to take the three hour test. This has happened to me every single pregnancy. The cut-off is 130 and I got a 134, so now I have to spend 5 hours of my Saturday drinking that nasty glucola, getting poked and waiting in the hospital waiting room! Although I am not loooking forward to my Saturday morning I am going to take this opportunity to focus on Operation: Clean House. Besides catching up on sleep, I have a laundry basket full of socks to fold and a baby room to clean and organize and some bills to pay and file. To some people these may sound like boring tasks, but when they can be done while kids are away having fun and I can watch a whole TV show or listen to music as loud as I want and have motivation to get my whole house clean it doesn't sound too bad to me.

Operation: Clean House

Since having R, I have really been struggling to keep my house in tip top shape. I went through a time of post-partum depression which totally took away my motivation, and then she required so many doctor's appointments and her allergies and special needs were very stressful as I was trying to adjust to being a part-time working mom and having two kids under the age of one. This was almost two years ago now and things have just progressively spiraled out of control. My laundry is being thrown on the laundry room floor, my bedroom hasn't been cleaned or swept in almost two years, my hall way is filling up with plastic tubs and my kitchen is in constant disarray. I don't even want to talk about the length of time my dishes were going unwashed.

In December, I really started to evaluate the root of the problem and realized that I have no storage space and too much stuff! The more clutter I have hanging out the less motivated I get to do anything and the longer my dishes and clothes have to wait to get washed. I vowed that in 2013 I would manage this mess!!

It is now the third week into the New Year and I am thankful to say that I am finally in a pattern of managing my dishes and laundry. I am doing this by alternating these chores. One day I do laundry and the next day I do the dishes. It took me a whole weekend to get caught up! I spent a whole Saturday washing, drying and putting away dishes so that my sinks were clean and I could start from square one. Then, I spent my whole Sunday washing, drying and folding all of the clothes that had piled up on the laundry room floor.

Then, that next Monday I did all of the dishes again, but this time it was only a sink full and took me about 20 minutes. I did them first thing in the morning, let them dry all day and then put them away once the girls went to bed. The next day (Tuesday) I did all of the laundry that had accumulated in the past two days, which amounted to one load. I put the load in first thing in the morning, switched to the dryer when the girls napped and then folded it when they went to bed.
Like I said I have been doing this successfully now for the past three weeks, but, I am still having some struggles. I have been putting the girls clothes away every laundry day after folding the clothes, but my husband and I still have about 5 baskets of laundry stacked up in the laundry room. I am also having trouble finding the motivation to fold socks on a regular basis and have all of them in their own laundry basket. My next step is to get these two huge obstacles under control so that I can get into a better routine with them as well.

I have found that once I get a fresh start I am having better luck managing the mess. But, I am having trouble finding that time to organize everything so I can start from scratch!

If you have read all of my other posts up until now you may realize that I am IN LOVE with Microsoft Excel, so that is how I decided to proceed with phase 2 of Operation: Clean House which will kick off the beginning of February. I started by making a column titled "Date" that is numbered 1-31, so there is a row for each possible day of the month.

Then, in the second column, called "DISHES/LAUNDRY" I indicated whether it would be a dishes or laundry day, alternating for all 31 rows.

The third column I titled "CLEAN" and this is where I listed a specific room/appliance to clean. For example, I have a slot for bathtub, sinks, toilet, counters, oven, microwave, refrigerator, etc. and then also for living room, bedroom, stairs, etc. These things alternate all the way down for the 31 days. Some items get cleaned weekly, some are monthly, I personalized it to my families needs. For example, we have two bathrooms so items in the bathroom were listed twice, while things like the oven and microwave are only listed monthly.

Finally, in the fourth column, labeled "SWEEP". I list all of the rooms in my house. I have 9 rooms, so every 9 days the list repeats. I tried to co-inside the "CLEAN" schedule with the "SWEEP" schedule so I am cleaning the rooms the day before it is on the schedule to be swept. This way I can make sure all clutter is picked up and dusting is done before I sweep.

On the side of my spreadsheet I put in special notes, for example I have four bedrooms, so I wash one set of sheets each week on the Monday or Tuesday, whichever is laundry day. I also noted that bills are to be paid the Tuesday of pay week and mailed out on the Wednesday of pay week. Then, we grocery shop on Saturday, update our budget on Sunday and take out all of the trash Sunday night. I am a visual person so it really helps me to spell it all out and have a check list so I can cross off what I have accomplished. I also noticed that I was becoming too overwhelmed with my checklists I was making everyday because it had a never ending amount of things to get done. This new schedule I devised only has 3-4 things I need to do each day which is more manageable and helps me feel motivated and relaxed about getting things done. Also, with this plan I am hoping that everything can be organized and I can be on some sort of cleaning schedule before the baby is born in April. So, look for updates in the upcoming weeks for things that had to be tweaked and how things are progressing with Operation: Clean House.

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Since yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I decided to do a little introduction for my girls. As I was looking for fun activities to do with them I realized how complex the whole story of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life really is, so I had to evaluate where to begin. I decided to start by discussing how everyone has hopes and dreams. I told them that yesterday has been set aside to celebrate a man named Martin Luther King, Jr. who had a dream that everyone would be treated nicely no matter what. We talked about ways to treat others nicely. K came up with keeping her hands to herself and using nice words. I was pretty impressed because I actually had no idea how this would go.

Then we moved on to talking a bit about hopes and dreams. I explained to them that hopes and dreams are things that you want to do as you get older. K told us that she wants hopes and dreams to become a doctor when she grows up. So, we decided to play doctor for a while. R wasn't too interested in all of this information and did not participate much in the conversation but gladly agreed to be the patient.

Then after their nap it was snack time. I had a chance to see a really cute demonstration on Pinterest using a brown egg and a white egg to talk about how although the outside looks different the inside is still the same. I didn't have any brown eggs, but really wanted to use this idea when I remembered that a teacher friend of mine used the same concept in her kindergarten classroom with M &Ms, which we always have on hand! I gave the girls each two M & Ms and R ate hers right away and begged for more, but K came up with some good ideas about how they were different. Hers were different shapes and colors, one had and M and one did not (it was on the bottom). Then I asked her to bite each one in half and tell me what the inside looked and tasted like and she responded "chocolate!". As they finished eating the snack size bag of M &Ms we discussed how people may be different colors, shapes, sizes, boy or girl, etc. but they are all the same inside and everyone has feelings and hopes and dreams!

I was really impressed with how interactive K was during all of the activities and it just solidified for me that homeschooling is the right choice. Those were the first "lessons" I had actually prepared and she was so responsive. I cannot wait to get started on talking about the color RED!! Hopefully I can find ways to keep R involved as well, since K already knows her colors.
Also, I have some many more ideas for celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s special day that I can not wait to try some of them out next year!

A Little Bit of Everything...

This morning is my dreaded glucose test, so I am up early hoping to just get it over with! I have been working with my girls on becoming more independent and responsible and just in the past three weeks there has been some improvement. R is more willing to try new things and be adventurous so it has been easier to get her helping with chores, getting dressed, going potty by herself, etc.

K on the other hand requires much more coaxing, bargaining and reminding which has become difficult for me, at times. She has a stuffed giraffe that she is very attached to and at times, such as trying to get out the door, we have to take him away until her tasks are completed. One time he actually had to stay home because she did not follow directions with only one reminder. That was a very rough day!

We have also found that she is better able to follow directions without distraction of the TV and her LeapPad so before we have to get ready we have to make sure to turn those things off and move them out of her way.

The biggest struggle with her is that she lacks motivation to try new things and do things for herself. She just this week lifted the toilet seat on her own and that is only because I absolutely would not do it for her. Once she did it we cheered for her and she has been doing it ever since without a problem. She is also notorious for being asked to pick something up and saying "No R will get it". We have had many struggles over this and I have learned that consistency really is the key. If I allow R to pick up and don't include K then that just reinforces that she does not need to be responsible for her toys. It is a work in progress, but I just wanted to share our progress and what I have learned thus far.

I have also been working on some activity to do on Monday in order to introduce Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I have been sifting through ideas on Pinterest and bouncing ideas off other moms and cannot wait to share them with everyone after Monday. I am really hoping the girls will be interested in learning about him. I plan to provide more information about him each year because at the age of 2 and 3 I don't think it would be beneficial to bombard them with his whole life story when they won't be able to understand.

What to Pack for the Hospital

I have not updated about Baby #3 in a while. Last week I had an ultrasound to make sure that I am not dilating and to check the baby's anatomy. All looked well and she is measuring exactly to her due date. The doctor told me she weighs 2 lbs 1 oz.  It was amazing to see her little face in the 3D/4D ultrasound and see that she looks just like R. I will be curious to see if that is how she still looks when she is born.

Anyway as I am approaching the 30 week mark I begin to get nervous because this is when I went into labor with R. I have decided that I will spend this weekend packing as much as possible so it is just ready to go out the door. K and R were both born in March and I always packed my bag the first weekend of January. I know that seems a little early but I am a planner. Anyway, I was very thankful I did when I went into labor on February 1st with R and my husband had to come home and get my bag. I still cannot imagine what my bag would have looked like if he would have had to pack it for me. It was bad enough that he took my clothes home with him when I was admitted to the hospital and forgot to bring me new ones when he picked me up at discharge. Thankfully the nurses let me wear some extra scrubs home, free of charge.

Any way, I have made my list and have it broken down into three categories. Some of it is self explanatory, other things I will explain.

First and foremost, I have a bag for myself.

This bag includes:

1. My laptop and the charger *
2. Phone charger *
3. Insurance Card *
4. PJs-2 pair (my hospital stay is usually three days total. Depending on time of delivery I will take a shower as soon as possible and change into a pair and then have a pair in case they get dirty or just to have as a fresh back up.)
5. Bras- 2
6. Socks-2
7. Slippers (some people like flip flops, but I like nice, cozy feet)
8. Money (for my husband for the vending machine)
9. Camera and Batteries (With K our camera batteries died right before she was born. Thank goodness for phones that can take pictures.)

In a second bag I pack some toiletries. Some hospitals provide some or all of these items, but mine do not. Here is what I include:

1. Soap, Shampoo and Conditioner, Lotion in the travel size
2. Deodorant
3. Q-Tips
4. Nursing Pads (These are important even if you aren't planning on breastfeeding!)
5. Toothbrush/Toothpaste
6. Brush/Hair ties/Bobby Pins
7. Makeup*
8. Depends (These are optional, but I have found them to be more comfortable than the mesh underwear provided and the pads that are really big and move around. They were suggested to me when I was pregnant with K and my mom got a small pack for me before I had her and they turned out to be such a blessing. I had no leaks and used them for the first three weeks until I could transition to my regular pads and underwear)

Finally, I pack a bag for the baby:

1. 1 pair of footie pajamas (my girls will each be bringing another pair for the baby to wear (including the going home pair which they picked out!)
2. Big Sister Gifts (I will post about these later, when I get the all ready)
3. Pacifier (the hospital provides one but they don't always use it when I request so I bring my own).
4. Her fuzzy blanket
5. Carseat
6. 3 Burp Cloths (In the past I have used one of the receiving blankets the hospital provides but I just think it is gross so this time I am going to bring some because if this baby is even half the puker as the other two it will still be a disaster)

* These items will be grabbed as we head out the door since we will have to use them up until the time we leave.

I hope this helps someone feel more organized when getting ready for the hospital. I know it is a huge stress trying to make sure you have everything so this list has been helpful for my planning.

Budget- Part 4

The final part of this four part series is going to talk about my final steps to organizing and keep track of our budget each month. This final piece is very simple but deserved it's own attention. After each bill due date is put on the monthly calendar, then the bill is received, paid and recorded in the weekly calendar. Then I patiently wait for the check or online payment to go through. I check my bank account every week (usually on Saturday) and record all of the things that have been purchased throughout the week on the appropriate day of the weekly calendar. If a bill payment has gone through I highlight them so that I know I don't need to account for that money any longer. If there are payments in the pending section I record them but I do not highlight them until they have actually been processed (so this will take place the following week). At this time I also make note of any income and note it as +100.00 for example on the day it was received. I also try to keep a running tally of where we are at compared to our initial budget and review this with my husband so he knows were we stand with areas such as gas, groceries, his blow money, and eating out.
On the last day of the month I get out my planning book and open my excel sheet to create my new budget.I record each expenditure in the appropriate category. Each category has it's own tab on my excel sheet to calculate the total expenditures separately. Also, throughout the month it is important to record cash spent in each category and to divide store trips if things were bought in different categories. At some stores I may be able to purchase groceries, things for my car and things for the baby and it is important to separate these out.
Once each expense is recorded in it's appropriate category I transfer those totals into my budget. I then see where I overspent and adjust as I prepare the budget for the next month. If it is an essential area where we over spent (such as gas) I will make changes. If it is a luxury area (like eating out) my husband and I will make a plan to cut down for the next month and adjust.
After I do the initial recording and budget my husband and I sit down and discuss the budget for next month. I show him the current months budget. We discuss any upcoming things that will change the budget, such as a trip, birthday, etc. and make changes as necessary.
The key to making our budget work is having a plan for problem areas and a commitment to stick to it. It is also important to keep track of cash purchases so that we stay accurate. That cash is noted as part of our income so it has to be accounted for. Finally, the biggest key to success is communication. It is not fair for me to think that my husband keeps track of all of our expenses in his head when I need to use tools to keep track of it for myself. This is why I make a point to update him on how much is remaining so he can make decisions throughout the week. Technically he could spend his whole $40 in the first week of the month, if he wanted to but he needs to know that he has no more money to spend.
As I have said before, this may not work for everyone but I hope that it has some good tips that can be implemented to help you and your family start a budget to become debt free. It is so amazing to know that we have paid off so much debt just by becoming organized and committed.

Budget- Part 3

It has taken a while for me to get back to my blog because we have been enjoying some random nice weather. I am going to explain my filing system for my bills. This has been a really important part of paying off our debt because it helps me stay organized. I am a very visual and tactile person and I like to have things in my hand with concrete information. At the first pay check of every month I sit down with my calendar and start to plan my next month. I write down the due dates of all of the next months bills and figure out which bills will be due on which pay day.
Then, when I get a bill in the mail I immediately write it in my weekly planner under the day that it is to be paid. This is the payday that is closest before it is due. I also try to keep a minimal amount of my bills direct withdrawal because I like to have that paper bill within reach so I can see it at any time. I know some people like to do everything electronically but I am just not one of those people.
After it is recorded I decide whether it will be paid online or by check. If it is paid by check I immediately write out the check, put the bill in the envelope and mark the payday date on the bottom right corner of the envelop. I also record the number of the check in my weekly planner.
If it is to be paid online I put them inside my weekly planner to be paid on payday. This is because some bill payers don't allow you to pre-select a specific day so I just do them all at the same time.
Once a bill is paid (whether online or by check) I write some specific information on each bill. I start by recording the amount I paid and the date it is paid. Underneath that information I write the check number or online confirmation number. This has come in handy a few times when places have said I didn't pay on time and I could tell them I received the confirmation number on a specific date and usually they reverse the late fee.
Also, if the due date is on payday I always write out a check and mail out all bills with checks on the Wednesday prior to payday. That way I am sure that they received the payment on time.
After a bill is paid (by check or online) and the above information is recorded on the bill I place it in a file folder. Initially, I had a file folder for each month and put all of the bills in there. Over time I got too many bills and it became too chaotic and hard to find things I needed. Now, I have a file folder for each bill (example: water, electric, hospital, pediatrician, etc.). Although those are just general titles I use the specific company name and follow it by the year. I keep all of these records for three years and then shred them. Keeping some of this information has also been helpful for taxes because you can claim the cost of medical expenses so I keep those sorted by provider and have a separate folder for prescriptions. Then when tax season comes I can just pull out those folders and take them to the tax preparer.
In the final section of this series I will discuss my final steps to keeping track of our budget so that we can successfully pay off our debt.

Budget- Part 2

This is Part 2 of my 4 part series about how we started our budget and how we have managed to stick to it for the past 6 months and pay off 56% of our credit card debt.

After we listed all of our outstanding debt and the minimum monthly payments, we mapped out the due date for each bill on a monthly calendar. Then, it came time to make our budget.
Some people that I talk to about budgeting have a budget that stays the same every month, meaning that they take expenses that happen once a year and divide it by 12 to come up with a monthly allotment that they put aside. I thought about this method and decided it really didn't work for my family. With that being said, most of our expenses are constant month to month, but other things are just too much of a variable for me to commit to setting aside money each month. One thing that we do set aside each month is the money for our trash bill, which we get every three months.

Once we decided how we wanted to do our budget I opened an Excel spreadsheet. I left the box in the top left hand corner blank and started in the second box down the first column. I then added in a category titled INCOME, skipped a box going down, then created a column listing all of the bills that showed up on our calendar, plus trash. Once all of the necessities were in I went back and added in a category for groceries, gas, my blow money (money I am free to spend as I please throughout the month), my husband's blow money, baby, eat out, other and prescriptions. The final category is titled "TOTAL"

 In the next column over I title it by month and type in what our estimated income would be as a positive number then going down the column I write down an estimate for each category as a negative number. At the end of the second column I push "AutoSum" which is located in the top right box within the Excel spread sheet. I then drag the box all the way up to our estimated income (make sure it is included in the box) and push ENTER. This will let you know if you are negative or positive for the month. If I come up negative I adjust my extra categories listed above and if I have extra money I add it to the current bill we are paying off or decide if it should be placed somewhere else. For example, our excess income for September was used in the gas category because we went on a trip for a weekend and needed more money for our gas that month.

If you are looking to pay down debt the key is keep your income category consistent and use any access income to pay off debt. As I mentioned before I use any access that is shown during my estimate to adjust categories but any extra income that comes in during the month (extra mileage, selling an item, overtime, income tax, etc.) only goes to paying off debt.

The third column on the spreadsheet I title "ACTUAL". This is where I add in what we actually made/spent for the month. I use my previously mentioned planner to calculate what we made for the month and put then in the row for income (make sure this is a positive number), then I do the same thing for all of our expenditures (make sure that you use a negative number). Then in the row for "TOTAL" I once again use Auto Sum to see where I stand. I always do this the last day of the month.

Now, this is where it gets a little bit tricky, this is where I calculate our access income. Most of our categories "roll over". For example, we budget $100 a month for medical bills, some months this is only $20 and others it well over the $100 budgeted so what I do is take the access amount found in the TOTAL row and subtract out what would be left over and keep it in the bank account in case we need it in an upcoming month. I also note in the fourth column what the total is in that "pot" of money. All of the bill categories "roll over" and some of the extra categories do as well (Sam's Club, CVS- prescriptions, baby, blow money) because some time we may have excess prescriptions or baby needs that require us to use more money or I may save up my blow money to get my husband a birthday present or a gift just because. There are other categories that NEVER get "rolled over". The main two are OTHER and EATING OUT. If we are under in these categories the money is calculated into our additional bill payment for the next month.

Then, once I calculate all of the roll over and subtract it from the left over money at the end of the month I have gotten the amount that will be added to the payment of the debt we are currently trying to pay off. For a few months we were working to pay off a bank credit card so all additional money from the previous month was added to the most recent bill when it was due to be paid. This is just the system that worked best for me, and I am sure there are many other ways to do this.

Next, in Part 3 I will explain my bill filing system and how it helps keep me organized!

Our Budget: Part 1- The beginning

After writing a bit yesterday about our financial goals for this year I worked on our budget for January 2013 and decided I would share a little bit about how we do things in a four part series. I know that every family has different circumstances and different things work for different people but this is what has worked for us in our 4 years of living together. We started out living paycheck to paycheck and not being able to pay bills before their due date. This was a really hard time for us that felt like it lasted for ever!
Then, we found out that we were expecting K and decided it was time for some major changes and looked for full time jobs with benefits and made our first big purchase, our home. Then just before she was born we bought a car adding more and more debt. Four short months after K was born we found out that we were expecting R and we would have two babies a year apart. That meant two in diapers. We decided that I would take on a part time job since my husband had benefits.
After R was born in 2011 we found that she had a lot of allergies and required a very expensive formula and that she would have to be on it for the first 15 months of her life, so we started using credit cards because we could not afford the formula and pay our other debts and meet the needs of our family.
She finally got off of the formula in June of 2012, but the damage had already been done. We had a total credit card debt of over $10,000. We finally decided that we could not live that way anymore and created our first budget. I must admit we were not really good at sticking to it in the beginning but did follow our promise to not use ANY of our credit cards, anymore!
Today I am going to tell you how I started to organize our debt. The first thing that I already had going for us was that I keep all of our bills filed in file folders for three years (I will post more about this in PART 3). If you are not already keeping your bills then you should collect all of the bills you are paying for that month and begin your budget the following month.
Once I collected all of the bills I wrote them down in a notebook by their due date. I also included the bills that are directly taken out of our bank account. When writing them in the note book I wrote the name of the bill in one column, the monthly payment in a second column and then the total debt left, if it was a credit card or loan, in the third column. I then transferred each bill to a monthly calendar by their due date and labeled each pay day for the month in so I knew which bills should be paid in which pay day. 
Now I use one of the weekly planners that you can buy, but you could easily make your own. It has a two-page layout with a calendar for the whole month followed by a two page layout for each week of the month. On the page with the whole month I write in when each bill is due and circle the pay days. Then, every Friday I log on to my online bank account and record the transactions that have been made throughout the whole week and note any income for the week. For things that were purchased in cash or cross categories we keep the receipts and put them into our bill bin to be sorted out and added to the planner. At then end of the month each category is totalled up and added to our budget.

Tomorrow, in PART 2, I will be showing you how I made our first budget.