Left Over Money

I’ve talked a lot about how we budget, like here, here, and here. What I really haven’t talked about, other than peripherally, is what we do with any “left over” money. I know that’s a funny term to use, “left over” money, because when you are in debt, there’s really no such thing; when you are in debt, there is a need or a purpose for every dollar that goes through your hands. What I really mean by “left over” money, is the money still sitting in a particular budget envelope at the end of a pay period or budgeting cycle.

The Husband gets paid every other Friday, so our budget runs for two weeks. Every two weeks our budgets for gas and food start over. Sometimes we have nothing left in those envelopes and sometimes we have a few hundred dollars left. It just depends on how hectic of a month it was or how planned and prepared we were or how many places we went during that time. Many different factors play into our budget.

Generally, we take that extra money and collect it until the end of the month when our credit card 1 bill is due; the one we are trying to pay off, and we add that money to however much we budgeted for our payment that month. Usually we budget $300 for our payment.  So, in a normal month, we would pay $300 plus any “left over” money from our gas and food envelopes.

Gas and food are our only two envelopes that don’t carry over a balance. We start those two over every two weeks and use the left over to help fund our debt pay-off.

Prior to having to pay for our kitchen, we were paying between $600 - $700 a month trying to pay off that credit card. Now, we are barely able to scrape together an additional $100 per month.  As our remodel drags on, our debt repayment lags. We still have “left over” money each budget period, but we are having to divert the money towards paying off the credit card that we pay off monthly.  The balances on that credit card have been astronomical since we started paying for the kitchen, always over $4000, and sometimes higher.

Our goal, once we get the kitchen finished and paid for, is to get back to paying more towards our credit card debt. Our hope is to once again be able to send all our “left over” money at the end of each month to our credit card debt.