I get paid tomorrow which is a good thing because we have been bleeding money again this month. The problem with this month was my budgeting to zero methodology. My husband gets paid every two weeks. With the first check of the month, I pay all our minor bills like cable, electric, interwebs, etc. With the second check of the month, I pay our mortgage. My check automatically goes to debt repayment.
Spending our checks like this has worked great so far. We've always had extra after each check, and I've been able to send extra to Sallie Mae. Unfortunately (or, actually fortunately), Mr. Wooks and I took a staycation at the beginning of the month. If you didn't know, a staycation is when you take days off of work and hang out at the house. We desperately needed this staycation. We work opposite shifts, and I have seen my husband a total of 30 minutes over the past five weeks. Anyway, he took four days of paid vacation. Now, I know you're asking yourself "well if it was paid vacay, what is the problem?" Well, let me answer that for you. The problem is that my husband only gets paid for eight hours when he takes vacation. When he works, he works 12 hours. Essentially we lost sixteen pay hours while we were watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy.
The first check of the month was big as usual. I paid all of our minor bills and was left with $600. I sent $500 to Sallie Mae and tucked $100 into our checking account in anticipation of a smaller check. I was not anticipating a REALLY small check, and we actually barely squeaked out enough for our mortgage with his second check. Really, this is no big deal because we have my check to fall back on, but we've been living so beautifully on one income that this setback made me feel a bit like a failure.
When I get my check tomorrow, I will take out $100 for gas and groceries next week and send the rest to Sallie Mae. I believe I will still be able to send roughly $2,200 leaving me just over $21,000 in debt. With my summer school pay, I should be debt free by the end of 2010 (literally right after Christmas!)!! I've already started browsing for next summer's vacation because, well, I will be able to afford it. :)
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