I decided that next year I'm going to keep my current debt tracker (which calculates monthly interest and pending balances, along with how long it will take to clear them!), but that I will incorporate the monthly payments into my expense tracker...I also decided to add the "fixed" expenses under the category "House" (rent, utilities, nanny...although nanny should go with school and that should merge into Child care....but, since she also does housework...)...anyway, I did that and, I calculated what my monthly expenses from these 2 categories are...I added the monthly totals to the categories already being tracked and, it turns out, to cover all I would need $1,237.XX NET per month! LOL!...I'm making $1,062 GROSS...no wonder I'm always scraping for money! (and, no wonder a few weeks off the frugal wagon can have such a nasty impact!)...so, all in all, I'm not doing THAT bad (I mean, eventhough my fixed income is about $372 BELOW my expenses, I more or less manage to get along and survive! --and have the occasional treat now and then! 
)
I have to think of a way to lower the spending some more in some of the categories... but, honestly, it would be VERY hard to carve $372!(35%)...unless we all decide to go on a 3-day fast once a month! LOL!...
no wonder I'm (almost) always broke!
October 16th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
October 16th, 2006 at 11:39 pm 1161041941
October 17th, 2006 at 03:20 am 1161055243
October 17th, 2006 at 02:33 pm 1161095612
There is some getting into debt, too, because my checking account has an overdraft and I use it if the $$$ coming in is not enough... the catch is that if I use it and don't bring the account to "normal" level within 30 days of using the overdraft, then the account would get blocked, so I cannot really abuse it!...
As bad as it sounds, my finances are in much better shape today than they were a year ago!
October 17th, 2006 at 03:07 pm 1161097678