It’s Budget Time Again!
That’s right folks, it’s that time of year again. If you haven’t started yet, you should be considering it before long. I like to start early to allow myself time to make actual adjustments to our spending prior to the end of the year. I’ve done quite a few posts this last year on the topic of budgeting and how we do our budget. You can see them all here.
Not only am I working on my budget at home, I’m getting ready to present our next year budget to the local neighborhood association (for which I am the Treasurer). Between those 2 budgets, my head seems to be swimming with numbers lately… and it’s kind of fun! I know, I’m weird that way.
Anyway, I’ve already started picking out a few areas where I think we can save money in our budget this next year. The biggest question at this point is still where my income will be coming from. I know I have my current contracting job and it should be quite safe through all of next year if I choose to stay, so that’s what I’m basing the income from. I’m hoping to be able to supplement that by sometime early next year with some income on my own business (you can take a sneak peek here) and possibly start working full time for myself by the last half of next year if things go well. So, here are the areas of our budget I plan on address over the next few months to see what can be done. I’ll give more detail of each area as we make decisions and move forward.
- Income - As I mentioned above, this is based on my current job only. I don’t plan on any less than this. Also, as a contractor, this amount includes me being away for 5-6 weeks during the year on holidays and vacation and factors in the 401(k) match.
- Medical Insurance - Anyone who’s read much of this blog will realize I’m not a big fan of my current medical insurance. I’m very strongly considering going to a private HSA plan this coming year and upping our deductible from $2,000/$4,000 to $10,000. I’ve already started investigating this one as open enrollment is coming soon. I would especially like to make this change with the anticipation of working for myself. That way I already have it in place and won’t have to do it later.
- Life Insurance - This is something we drastically need to get added to our budget this year. It’s not a huge expense at our ages, so we need to get moving and protect ourselves. We have some unique needs in our estate planning, so it should prove to be an interesting investigation.
- Cell Phones - A line of budget that is no more, only because these are now business expenses.
- Irregular - This area is going to get more detailed next year based on our spending this past year. I’ll be splitting that up to include our HSA funds, vacation and home repairs.
So, there’s the basics. Stick around to see more details and see what other areas we delve into over the next couple of months.
