A Better Budget and Roth Contribution Schedule!
May 11th, 2008Life went crazy and for a few weeks, I quit updating my budget spreadsheet; however, I was able to stay within my budget. Because of this, I’m switching to a less complicated version. The new version will simply track my total spending for important categories.
My new budget is as follows:
| Category | Budgeted | Actual |
| Rent | 668.00 | |
| Electricity | 50.00 | |
| Cable | 48.86 | |
| Water | 20.00 | |
| Cellphone | 25.00 | |
| Gas | 120.00 | |
| Food | 100.00 | |
| Student Loan | 167.00 | |
| Roth Contributions | 300.00 | |
| Banfield | 21.95 | |
| Car Fund | 50.00 | |
| Medical Fund | 50.00 | |
| Entertainment | 60.00 | |
| Personal | 20.00 | |
| Total | 1700.81 |
$1700 is much more than I was expecting; but, I’ve never figured out my monthly expenses with Roth Contributions and contributions to the car/medical funds . When I reach the respective totals for the car / medical fund, I’ll send another $100 into savings.
I’m trying to max out the Roth by the end of the summer, this will then let me sock away $5000 in contributions for 2009 by the end of 2008. All of my savings are going towards Roth Contributions and into a house fund. Since I won’t be buying a home any time in the next 10 years, it doesn’t matter when in the year I make the contributions into the house fund.
Dollar Cost Averaging (on a yearly basis) into my Roth IRA will give the market more time to work it’s magic. These yearly contributions will create a set schedule for rebalancing my asset allocation and remove any inkling of trying to time the market.
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