This year whenever anyone asked us what we wanted for Christmas, Hubs and I replied “money.” We have been working on updating our kitchen, one small step at a time. I have almost finished all of the painting of the cabinets, and we will replace outdated and nasty appliances one a time, as we can afford them.
Since we have been married, we have had a counter microwave. It has worked well, and we will keep it when we replace it, but we are not thrilled about it. We have wanted an over-the-range microwave, but to do this, we will need to adjust the cabinets above our oven. I have not painted those cabinets, because of it.
Anyway, we decided that the money we got for Christmas, along with the money I have gotten from my piloted program at school, we would use towards a microwave. We ended up getting a lot more money than expected, and we came in under budget for our Christmas this year, so we decided that we would also get a treadmill with the money. Here is the breakdown, as I had figured it out:
$746 (Cash, extra money from Christmas, money from piloted program)
~$300- Microwave (Ended up being $300.66)
~$320- Treadmill (Ended up being $342.32 with a 2 year warranty)
This leaves us with $57.02.
If you read my blog earlier, then you know that our tv died. We are now looking at buying a new one. We are coming in under budget for December by about $100, so I am willing to put that towards our tv. We also have $60 in our “house” envelope that we will put towards it. That brings us up to $217.02. I told Hubs that I am willing to use about $250 from our savings to go towards the tv as well. If you are keeping up, that means we are at $467.02. Some other miscellaneous money I have available includes:
Paypal (~$45)
Rebate apps (~$65)
Change jar (~$50)
Total: ~$160
Absolute tops of how much we can spend on a tv is $627.02. I do not want to spend that much, and Hubs is being really good trying to find them for under $400. (I do love that he is on the same page with me about spending money and making large purchases.)
(I also have an upcoming photo shoot in February, but won’t count that money until it happens. I also want to save all of my photography income this year to hopefully fund a new lens. I don’t want to come reliant on it.)
Basically, we will be able to replace our tv, but not with something as expensive and nice as the original one. I told Hubs that if we use the money from savings and are down to not much emergency fund, then things are going to be pretty tight for quite a while. No eating out, no coffees for me (once my gift cards/gift certificates are gone), no extras really.
If we include the new CD player for Hubs’ car that we got before our trip to Chicago for Christmas, this makes 4 LARGE (over $200) purchases for us in about 1 month. This is UNHEARD OF in our world. I am happy to say that even with these purchases, we are paying them outright and will have no additional debt! No extra payments!
So there ya have it! An update of our purchases. I need to redo our January budget so we can really pump up how much we are putting into our emergency savings fund again. It needs to be built up and built up fast!