First person to tell me where the title of this post comes from gets a virtual “high-five”.

I’ve been “away” from the blog for a few days, busy with “real” life.  Normally, this is where most bloggers apologize for the “lack of posts”, but not me!  I’ll just let you know that I’ve been very, very busy, and leave it at that.

I’m proud to announce that my little girl one TWO state gymnastics titles this past weekend!

Speaking of my little girl, progress has been made toward the completion of her playhouse.  I’ll write a post and upload some photos, tomorrow.

As for FINANCIAL “talk”, I will make a confession.  April of 2007 has been a bit of a “throw-away” month.  I have managed to save a little bit of money, but not nearly as much as I would have liked.  Why? PLAYHOUSE!  Yikes, what an expensive little project the playhouse has turned out to be!  Also, two trips out of time, my wife’s birthday, an unexpected car repair…. you get the picture!  I’ll wait until the end of the month to officially “update” our progress, but I know that I have spent more money THIS month than I have in any of the past 24 months!  (But, the playhouse will ROCK and is totally worth it!)

Tomorrow morning, it’s back to my regular blogging schedule!

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I have created a budget based on our household income. My wife and I both receive monthly checks, so our budgeting process is pretty straightforward. Each month, we sit down and talk about our upcoming expenses, and the we allocate funds accordingly. We use cash for daily expenses, online bill pay to pay monthly bills, debit cards for groceries and gas, and our online savings account for non-monthly bills, short-term savings, and non-retirement savings. Our budget changes very little from month-to-month, but we still sit down to discuss any “out of the ordinary” expenses. For instance, our daughter is a gymnast and the expenses associated with gymnastics vary. Still, our budgeting process has become rather “routine” and only takes a few minutes to do.

Of course, life does not always go according to “plan”. Each month we seem to have at least one “unplanned for” expense. Now, we have created a “miscellaneous” category in our budget, but we only allocate a small amount in that category. Also, especially now that I make a little money from my blogs, we also have “irregular” income. Even before I began blogging, I would occasionally receive extra income from freelance work, as a birthday gift, etc. Instead of “over-thinking” our budget process, we simply combine the “unplanned for expenses” and the “irregular income” into one, easy-to-manage system. Any money that I receive in the form of irregular income goes directly into my savings account. Any unplanned expense that I might have gets paid for out of my savings account. (Of course, I have to make a transfer to my primary checking, but you get the point.) At the end of the month, any “left over” irregular income gets allocated to long-term or retirement savings. Also, if irregular income does not “cover” unplanned expenses, money budgeted for “miscellaneous expenses” will be used.

I am super-strict about my salary, and I budget “to-the-penny”. I treat irregular income a bit differently. I allow myself to have a little fun, buy a few “extras”, take my wife out to dinner, etc. In other words, I have a bit of a “life”!

How do YOU manage irregular income and unplanned for expenses? Leave a comment and let us know.

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For those of you who have been following along, I’m building a playhouse for my little girl. It is 8ft by 12ft with 8ft standard walls. (I had no concept, when I started this thing, that an 8 by 12 building was so BIG!) I spent the better part of the afternoon framing the roof rafters. (Technically, framing a roof is NOT a “one-man” job, but you do what you have to do.) Without further delay, I present PICTURES!

(Before you take a look at the pictures, please realize that I am NOT a professional carpenter, I’ve NEVER built anything this big before, and I am LITERALLY learning as I go from step to step. In other words, if you are planning on building a playhouse for your child (or any other building) PLEASE do not use these pictures as a guide. Seriously, the fact that this thing is still standing is a minor miracle. Tools used so far: framing hammer, tape measure, skill saw, saw horses, level, speed square… and that’s about it.)

As you can see, I have simply framed out the doorway and I am waiting until I have the roof “finished” before I cutout and install the windows. (I am not using the pool ladder that you see! My little boy was “helping” me and that’s “his” ladder.) There will be a 2 final sets of “fake” rafters, which will be added to the ends of the building.

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When I first started getting out of debt, I created a bare-bones budget and a bare-bones emergency fund. I kept $1000 in my ING Savings account, and I only budgeted for “necessities”. After getting out of debt, I stuck with the “bare-bones” budget, but I increased my emergency fund to $20,000. Now that I have my fully-funded emergency fund, my budget has been refined and I am “budgeting” for specific future purchases. My goal is to make my current emergency fund “obsolete” by replacing it with defined savings categories.

While getting out of debt, the only purpose that my emergency fund served was to pay for “unplanned for expenses”. After getting out of debt, but before I refined my budget, the purpose of my emergency fund changed. One, my emergency fund was increased to provide a “cushion” in the event that I lost my job. Two, my emergency fund was increased to so that I could replace automobiles, furniture, etc. In other words, I had a pile of cash, but it was “unallocated” and not associated with a SPECIFIC future purchase.

Now, my goal is to sub-divide my emergency fund into “defined savings categories”. Every month, I will allocate a portion of my budget to each of these categories, ear-marking funds for SPECIFIC future purchases and for SPECIFIC emergencies. I will continue to dedicate $10,000 to my “lost my job” emergency fund. The rest of the money in my emergency fund will be reallocated into specific categories. Note, the money itself will not “move” but I will track how much I have allocated to various categories using a spreadsheet. New categories to be created and funded include, but are not limited too, automobile replacement, furniture purchase, and vacation savings.

My ultimate goal is to have enough money allocated into each category that I can make a purchase, like buying a car, without using “emergency funds”. I want my emergency fund to simply exist in the event that I lose my job or have a “real” emergency, not as a source of funds for “expected and anticipated” expenses.

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I have just recorded and released the latest episode of the No Credit Needed Podcast.

If you are trying to reduce your electric bill, you might find this article at Blunt Money very interesting.

Canadian Capitalist has a breakdown of Vanguard’s Total Market ETF. Since I’m just now learning about ETFs, I love finding articles like this one.

Debt Hater with thoughts about personal finance blogging. (Side note: Debt Hater = coolest hair in pf blog community! Check out her homepage to see what I mean!)

Raising4Boys with an AWESOME post about a nine year old who saved his own money to buy a dope camera!

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