Budget August 26th to September 8th

Traditionally I have always budgeted around Nick's pay cheques as he earns more money and this makes the most sense.  I have decided, however, to start looking at our money in a bit of a different way. I sat down and divided our money into sections - Nick's cheques will cover all of our regular expenses (so essentially we live off of only his income), my cheques will cover all of the debt repayment (so the more I earn the faster we can pay it off!), and the Universal Child Care benefit we receive from the government will be used for expenses for the kids (like school fees, activities, clothing, and toys).  It's still the same money, I'm just looking at it in a different light.


I kept our grocery budget low for this budget term so that I can focus on using up what's in the cupboards and freezer.


MONEY COMING IN: $3660.00


Nick's pay cheque $2460.00 (This is an estimate, Nick's raise kicks in this pay cheque so it may be higher)
My pay cheque $1200.00 (I was hoping it would be higher, but there were some problems with the remote system last night and I couldn't get as much work done as I had planned on)


MONEY GOING OUT: $3477.52


Debt repayment

$260.00 Money owed to mom
$50.00 PC M/C Payment
$33.96 Personal Tax Instalment
$56.00 Corporate Tax Instalment


Total: $399.96


Utilities

$161.34 Cell phones
$300 Electricity & gas
$2.72 Phone & internet (there was an error on last month's bill, hence why it's so low this month)


Total: $464.06


Housing
$1305 Mortgage


Total: $1305.00


Kids

$66.00 Gabe's preschool fees
$57.50 Tristan's school fees (one time yearly fee)
$155.00 Tristan's scout fees (one time yearly fee)


Total: $278.50


Misc.

$35 Bank fees
$100 Sump pump (to flush our tankless hot water heater - this will be a one time cost that will save us lots of money in paying a serviceman to come out and do it for us)


Total: $135.00

Life (discretionary categories):

$80 Spending money
$350 Fuel
$300 Groceries
$40 Entertainment
$125 Misc.


Total: $895.00