The Personal in My Personal Finance

The good news is I am finally on the payroll and will be receiving my salary on schedule. The bad news is my net pay is not enough for my household's monthly expenses. When I tallied our expenses vis-a-vis my net pay, there was a Php900 deficit. And I hadn't even included my lunch and commuting expenses in the tally.

Here's how our monthly expenses look like and the percentage they take up of my paycheck:

Yaya salary: 10.87%

Yaya benefits: 1.57%

Grocery: 17.72%

Gasoline: 8.86%

Mortgage: 23.62%

Eating Out: 7.87%

Laundry: 2.95%

Electricity: 6.89%

Parking: 5.91%

Condo and Water Dues: 5.91%

Cell Phone: 2.36%

Tuition Fee: 3.94%

Internet: 3.35%

TOTAL: 101.82%

However, I'm not worried about the shortage because we usually get all sorts of bonuses at work and I get an honorarium when I attend board meetings, so that Php900 deficit is more than covered.

But I'm shocked at how much we spend on groceries. In fact, we have almost finished up our July grocery budget and it's just the middle of the month! What's happening here?! 

I have pinpointed the problem to the fact that our weekly grocery stash only lasts for more or less 5 days, so when our foodstuff runs out, I end up giving money to my husband to buy more. These unplanned purchases then eat up my budget. We really do need to come up with a weekly food plan. It's clear to me that the: "We'll cook whatever is there" method that my husband follows is not working for my budget. Now how do I get him to agree to this? Seriously, I get really envious when I read personal finance blogs or stories where the couple works together towards a common goal of debt elimination and/or increasing their net worth. It's hard doing all of this alone.

As for the regular bonuses, those will be diverted towards beefing up our emergency funds, making additional mortgage payments and paying off our debt to my parents. Non-sexy stuff that will lead to the ultimate goal of debt eradication.

So there you go. Fight lang ng fight.