Income & Spending Report.....August Update

* As Hubs retired effective July 1, I am no longer doing my 2017 Savings Challenge.
We ended that on June 30th.  The goal was $17.5K saved for the half of 2017 that Hubs was working.
We actually saved $21,100.42 all totaled, so $3600.42 over goal!

Now that we are living on an annuity and 401K$(no 401K$ until October)I am still going to keep track of our monthly spending and income, and hopefully we'll still be able to live BELOW our means and I'll have some leftover monies each month to tuck aside.
But this money leftover at the end of each month, at least for now(as we find our new financial "normal")won't be saved toward a yearly Savings Challenge.

The issue now is to cover all the bills with just the annuity payment each month plus some liquid savings(checking account cash)until October.
October is when Hubs turns 59.5 and then we can access the 401K retirement savings.  Until then things will be tight here at Chez Sluggy, so all the leftover monthly cash will get tucked aside to pay irregular bills that will be popping up in August and September.

Got it?
OK, let's move on.

Though nothing will be put toward it the rest of 2017(probably), the 2017 $17.5K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals are still available
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog for the specific numbers HERE.

On to the August report--
I have 2 goals for August.....
The 1st is to actually finish the month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to try to have a little cash leftover at the end of the previous month to apply toward irregular bills that are coming due in the next month.

I have to report that we finished up August in the black.
The extra amount we ended the month of August with?.......$562.41

Income

The income in August was the monthly annuity payment and the July overage of $154.88.
We had $250.72 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.

Other monies received in August totaled $311.69.  This was interest made on non-retirement accounts and a blogging revenue check.

This brought us to our gain of $562.41
Since we have no debt, this will get put aside to apply to the irregular bill coming due in September--school taxes(these are a component of our property taxes).

Outgo

As for the expenses this August, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

*  Phone charges and internet were approximately the same as last month(Within $1 or so).
*  The water bill was $11.98 less than in July.
*  The gas card bill was $49.63 lower than last month.
*  The cash withdrawals were $200 lower than in July.
*  The electric bill was $33.52 lower than last month's bill.  I guess the kids actually turned off the a/c when they weren't using it. lolz
*  The credit card bill was $1003.58 lower in August compared to July. (This doesn't count trip charges on the c/c as those are paid out of monies put away for the trip.)

HERE are the BAD THING

*  The medical bills were $6.40 higher this month over last month's bills.
*  Home insurance was due in August.  Nuff' said. 8-(
*  We had to pay the August health insurance premium of $1577.67(this use to come out of Hubs' paycheck automatically).  We hadn't set up using the health insurance account through his employer yet to pay this bill so it came out of our monthly income.  UPDATE-Papers are filed so we are waiting to receive reimbursement.  Since we paid the last 3 months of healthcare premiums out of our regular income, once the reimbursement check is received these funds will be added back to our "Other Income" category and used toward bills, both regular and irregular.

The Food Budget costs for August are in another post, which is located HERE.

So we end August in the black with $562.41 to apply to the school/property taxes bill in September.

The school taxes bill amounts to $2012.31, so I just have to eek out another $1449.90 from our September annuity income to cover that along with all the regular monthly bills.

As we'll only have $1763.55 of our annuity to live on after paying the school taxes I'll have to pull money from regular savings to cover the healthcare premium of $1771.94 for September.  That bill would have swallowed what was left of our annuity check after paying the school taxes and left us in the hole to the tune of $8.39 AND WE'D STILL HAVE TO PAY ALL OUR REGULAR BILLS FOR SEPTEMBER STILL!
Ugh!!!
Luckily I have regular savings(in our checking account)and I don't have to dip into the online accounts earning a pittance of interest.

Hubs has been taking his time to do the paperwork to get reimbursed for our healthcare premiums from our RMSA account which has been annoying me.  Now that he's FINALLY gotten around to filing, he just told me that it may take two MONTHS for them to reimburse those premium expenses!
This means I'll have to yank another $1700+ out of savings for two more months before we get that money back!
Ugh ugh ugh!
I am so thankful we have saved so much over the last ten years or so out of our regular paychecks so I can not have to worry at nights over this snapfu and know we have enough cash to cover it all.

Enough of my ranting, let's move on.

FINAL THOUGHTS on August---Surprisingly our regular bills in August came in at under $800(not counting the portion of c/c bills for the road of course). But add in the homeowners annual insurance payment, the healthcare premium and a $55 store c/c bill(for clothing for me) and the bills topped $3K. Ugh.

THOUGHTS going forward into September of 2017----
September will be more than tight this year.  There is no way the annuity payment, a bit of interest and the August overage $ will cover all the bills AND the school taxes.
Sigh.
We have always covered any irregular bills with our extra monthly income(as we mostly seemed to live well below our means and had cash to spare each month).

Now that funds are tighter(much tighter until Oct.!)we need a new game plan in regard to those irregular bills.

I'll be setting up a sinking fund to cover these irregular costs for 2018, meaning I'll set aside a specific amount each month in 2018 so that when these irregulars come due I have cash enough in that account to pay them without dipping into regular savings.

There is one more big irregular bill in 2017 coming in November--the semi-annual car insurance premium of approx. $900.  I should be able to cover that with regular income this year but I think I'll begin the Sinking Fund in October of this year anyway and get a jump on the 2018 irregular expenses so we can cash flow all the irregulars in 2018.

The one good thing about September bills will be that all the Road Trip expenses put on the credit card(most were due on August's bill and some due on September's bill)will be paid out of our savings and NOT our September income.  We planned and saved for this trip so it won't impact our regular bills/income.

So how was your August financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in August?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
What did you do with any money leftover at the end of the month?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings, in an emergency fund or a retirement account?
Or did you blow it on a want?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check out your progress too and celebrate or commiserate with you!

I hope this year was the one were you cleaned up your finances and paid off your debts.
That you planned to set something aside if you didn't already or increased what you banked now for your future self.
Or paid extra on the principle of your mortgage if your house isn't already paid off.

Live below your means and keep some change for a rainy day....because no matter how sunny it is in your life now, dark clouds come along and you'll be glad you have that umbrella to keep you dry.

Sluggy