financial woes

we're screwed! totally.

last night, je and i sat down and re-assessed our monthly budget. we just found out that we have been living BEYOND our means. meaning, we are spending more than we're earning, and even if we allocate 100% of our paychecks to take care of bills, we're still going to be $600 short every month!

so that explains why our savings were depleted. je thought it was just a fluke because every time we go home to pinas, we shift our funds around to make it easily available should we need it. we thought we were just short because the money was elsewhere. well, there was no money anymore!

so yesterday was a wake up call. we sat in silence for a minute and started crunching the numbers, again. it was said that craziness is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. i guess we went crazy last night. we kept checking the numbers, double-checking the math, looking at potential loopholes we probably missed.

we always come up with a deficit.

we looked at the figures from when we started 7 years ago, and the numbers we're currently paying. some of the extra expenses were brought about by the new house being bigger than our old house. we spend twice as much on water, and twice as much on electricity. then we have the car loan, for the van. then we have so many plane tickets bought in the last 6 months. plus jecobie's birthday, medical expenses, the christmas expenses, etc. the last 2 years have been crazy and we were too busy to notice that we're dipping in our savings often.

so in the next 6 months:
- we have to cut back, if not completely eliminate, eating out.
- no more bath tub for je or me, except on special occasions.
- pistoy will have to cut back on his bath tub swimming as well.
- we unplugged the 2nd fridge at the garage, and crammed everything into the fridge we're using inside the house.
- we have to consciously turn off the fans and lights in other rooms when nobody's there.
- we have to let go of the landscaping expense, which means je will have to mow the lawns himself.
- we have to adjust our car insurance policy to cover only the basic features. we just need to drive carefully, and make sure it won't be OUR fault if we ever get into an accident.
- we have to cut back on the extra-bucks in our car payments. currently we pay an extra $90 per month to expedite settling the loan. the earlier we pay off the loan, the better because that would mean we are paying less interest on it.
- we have to sell my Acura. we might put the money to pay extra on the car loan.

we have to put the house improvement stuff on hold, until our stuff really falls apart, or until we get some breathing room financially:
- we can't buy a new couch. a spring popped out of the bottom of the sofa already.
- we can't buy a new bed rail. our current one does not have night stands, and is a "frame-only" set.
- we can't buy a shed. supposedly all the yard-related stuff should go here instead of the garage.
- we can't put a screen out on the back porch. for now, a mosquito repellant spray and katol will have to do.
- we can't take out the carpet and replace it with wooden floors. the carpet is still in pretty good condition, but the previous owner had pets so i have that "psychological dirt" on it. plus, it is sooo hard to maintain! the only up-side is when jecobie trips (which seldom happens, he usually slips on the kitchen tiles!), he doesn't hurt himself.

anyway, it was such a crappy position to be in, knowing that even if we put in everything from our paychecks, it still won't be enough. the house wasn't even a big dent on our expenses. so what went wrong?! i don't think we've been living luxuriously. except for the eating out and shopping for pasalubong, that is. and of course, plane tickets. a plane ticket for one person is around $2K total, so spread that over 12 months, and we seem to be spending an extra $150+/month. and last December-January, multiply that by 4, so that might be where the $600 is coming from. plus the pasalubongs for the relatives in pinas, and then again when flying back to US. but still, that means that with 100% of paychecks in, we're only going to breakeven with our expenses!

we are worried and it's a good thing, i guess. so now we have to be conscious of our spending habits. i still need to send money to my family back home, and where that will fall under, i'm not sure. it used to be that we still have a few hundred for our own separate savings. and that's where i pull the funds from when i send them to pinas. but since we'll be putting everything into our common fund for the bills and other expenses, where am i going to pull the funds from every month now? my savings will last only 3-4 months if i take it from there. and i don't want to go zero on my savings, in case there are emergencies. *knock on wood*

jecobie's savings will remain untouched. we already "borrowed" from him when we paid the closing costs of the new house. je also doesn't want me to stop the 401K contributions, and i think he's right. since we don't have any savings, at least the 401K is a safety net. we still don't feel comfortable, but at least we still have a last resort.

we could probably ask for the payments of our "pautangs". je's brothers borrowed $10K and $5K respectively. my bro borrowed $5K from us for the water station business. but that won't solve the problem in the long run. we'd only have some additional funds to pay the bills, but it won't solve the problem.

this puts things in perspective. we are planning on another child next year, but at the rate we're going, will having another kid be a responsible decision? at most, i can stop sending money to pinas, but i know how that will dramatically affect them. but we also don't want to wait too long to decide, to see how things fall if we start tightening our belts, before deciding on another kid or not.

i almost didn't sleep last night. i'm worried as hell. this morning when i woke up, i felt refreshed. then after a few seconds, i remembered we were dealing with a problem last night. when i finally remembered what it was, i had to drag myself out of the bed and take a shower to get ready for work.

this is one hell of a rat race.