My Family’s Money

In preparation for the new year I have put together some conservative estimates to help us get a better understanding of what our financial outlook is for 2008. I’ve posted the results on the sidebar just below our net worth calculations to be a constant reminder for myself that the road before us is kind of like Interstate 405 – not the easiest or most fun drive, but one that we will complete if we have the patience. Here are the numbers:

Estimated 2008 Income – $33,480 ($32,520)
Estimated 2008 Expenses – $26,350

[Update:1/10/2007] Annualized 2007 Expenses – $28,475

Estimated Surplus – $7,130 ($6,170)
Savings Goal For 2008 – $10,000

Estimated 2008 Income – This number represents what we will take home from my low $30k salaried position and my wife’s soon to be part-time gig. It has all taxes, benefits, and 401(k) contributions removed from the number. It does not take into account a potential raise for either my wife or myself and it supposes that our tax withholdings remain the same – despite the fact that I think we are expecting a significant return come late January, early February from the Federal Government. This number will be updated as new information becomes available.

Estimate 2008 Expenses – I have annualized our expenses from April 2007 until December 2007 to give us a picture of what to expect each month. I have tried to include rising gas prices, a new gym membership, and our adjusted short term savings plan in this number to help give us a more realistic picture of our future. I will update this number each month as we test out just how well we can keep our 2008 family budget.

Savings Goal – As you can see, we fall about 29% short of our savings goal bases upon these estimates. It will be difficult to make up this difference, but with some hard work, olive oil, and whole lot of Rainman (1988) I think we can pull it off.

[Update:1/10/2008]
2007 Annualized Expenses – This represents all the money we were on pace to spend if we had been married and living together for all of 2007, instead of 9 months. This year’s expectation represents a %7.5 decrease in our spending. I did not realize this when first putting together my numbers – we could handle this easily or it could really strain us, I don’t really know yet. We haven’t even gotten through our first month expenses!

[Update:1/28/2008]
This post discusses the reasons for the changes made to these numbers. New and updated numbers for our Estimated 2008 Income and Estimated Surplus are now represented inside the parenthesis and are in red.