Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Having an Emergencey Monthly Budget

In these difficult economic times, it is NEVER ever to soon to start planning for the unexpected. After all, isn't that's what car/home insurance, wills, and other future planning documents are for. It is to have everything in place, as best as you can, so you and your family would be prepared for the worse.

It's no surprise that more and more companies are laying off workers; and although my hubby's job is pretty secure (works in pharmaceutical/technologically field), you just never know. Even if he received a pay decrease, we would need to have a plan in place to cover our bills; especially with me staying home and having 1 income. It's even more important.

I talked with my husband about having an Emergency Budget in place; to cover our necessary expenses until he found another job, if he got laid off. He agreed and we started working on one.

Here's our Emergency Budget (if something happened)-$2,000 a month. (from our savings)
-This does NOT include unemployment, that would just be extra income.

Mortgage, Taxes, Homeowners Insurance, PMI= $1,143.50
Electricity/GAS/Water (Utilities)= $160.00
Phone (basic service)/Internet (basic as well)= $40.00
Cell Phone (reduce plan to just 1 phone with basic plan)= $40.00
Food/Toiletries/household expenses = 275.00
Transportation ( 2 cars, paid off) = $85.00
Student Loans= $40.00 (get them deferred due to unemployment)
Misc= $100.00
Heath Ins. (Daughter would get FREE coverage from state; hubby and I will get coverage through COBRA)= 100.00
Credit Cards= $12.00 ( they have $0 balance, but company charges $12 in monthly maintenance fees)

Total Bills = $1995.50; so we just rounded up to $2,000 (This may sound like a lot, but it isn't)

These are our basic bills, and we figured after looking over everything, we would need $2,000 to cover everything, especially our house payment (so we don't lose it, were new home owners..lol). It pays to save and be frugal, especially in these times where no one or no job is off limits.

Have you and your family developed a plan in case something happened?

It's never to soon to start.

Enjoy your day!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great idea, and emergency budget, I haven't done one of those but I have created a monthly budget so I basically know how much money we need to make to pay our bills, scary way to look at it but the truth.

Jenny said...

Having an emergency budget is very important. Great job going over it all now, before it's too late.

I would get rid of those $12 a month credit cards. It may hurt your credit rating a first, but you probably aren't taking out a loan for a house or car soon, so you'll have time to catch up.

Katrina said...

I love seeing how people are looking to have an emergency fund in case something unpredictable happens. We have the same plan as you and we have our life insurance in place too, in case something tragic happens to one or both of us, we would know our KeKe would be taken care of. It's fantastic that your family will be prepared if things took a wrong turn. Thanks for sharing with us.