Our Budget...Finally

I finally drew up a complete budget with percentages. This is a budget solely without bonuses but base salary. To see how we spend our money. We bring home about 55% of our income. Of that we spend 45% of our income with 10% going straight to tuition.

We should pay 16% to all Federal, SS, State, Medicare taxes. Which is awesome. Remember that taxes is a graded system and though you make a lot, only the top is taxed at your highest %. We unfortunately have a large mortgage and tuition payments, so our federal taxes are very low compared to income.

We save 25% of our income to retirement, 10% to taxable savings (ie tuition). Our PITI is 29% contributing to the bulk of our living expenses. We also have large tuition payments but a lot of that is deferred so we basically save it monthly and pay it in chunks over the year.

Our biggest problems is we don't have any set amount being saved for car replacement. So we are running a very lean budget. I think once DH is done with school we will be able to redirect our money to building up sinking funds for car replacement, more travelling, and paying back our student loans.

Also we still have our friend living with us, paying us some income. This actually lowers our housing expenses to 26% as well our utilties are decreased by 1/3. He unfortunately did not get to purchase a place through the low income lottery, but is still looking and has found some pretty good deals with the softening market. He believes he'll be out by the summer. He's been paying minimal rent, but it's allowed us to afford a vacation last year.

Right now I need $15k for tuition by 8/2008. We have $8000 and with a tax refund $3400 and rebate $1200 we should be right on target to hit it.