Every year, during the first week of January, I update my excel budget. It’s the tool I’ve used for 5+ years now to track how much I anticipate our financial situation will change over the calendar year. Last year (2013) I predicted a $50,000 increase, but with some massive help from the stock market we ended up $70,000 ahead.
Have you noticed today’s date? January 8th. Yeah… that means I’ve failed to update my spreadsheet. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t really care.
Like at all.
This year is sure to be a doozy for the Ninja household. I don’t expect the markets will increase another 30% (although I wouldn’t be mad if they did).
Budgeting has always been easy. This year, it will be anything but.
Girl Ninja will finish out the school year and pop a baby out 6 days in to summer. I believe she gets paid through the summer, but come September, we’ll be a one income household. That’s about $2,100 less per month in our pockets.
Oh and how about our roommate. She’s been the best tenant ever; we almost never see her because she works so late, she pays rent on time or early each month, and she’s super clean. Collecting $400/month from her has been awesome, but I suspect that after the baby comes, she might not want to live here anymore.
I mean, I sure as heck wouldn’t want to live with someone else’s whiny/poopy baby. If she does move out, we’ll be down $2,500/month between the loss of rental income and our single income status.
That’s $30,000 in discretionary income gone.
Hold please while I go punch myself in the face and vomit everywhere.
And don’t even get me started on baby costs. We’ve never had one before so we don’t know how that will further impact our ability to save. Hopefully I can teach my baby about Roth IRAs before he/she turns six months. Never to young to learn right?
Long story short, making an annual budget is super fun when you are expecting to have your best year ever (like 2013). Making a budget is super sucky when you are expecting the year to be mediocre at best.
Anyone else expecting to have a less-than-stellar 2014?
