My new budget

[sbcalimom]

My husband and I just separated and it's looking like divorce is inevitable sometime next year. I've set up a new budget in YNAB for myself and want to get some feedback. Medical insurance is covered by husband and will remain so until late next year. Once the divorce is final I will have to get insurance for myself somehow and if DDs can't go on his policy I'll have to find something for them that he will help pay for.

Income:
My Net $3942
Consulting $150/mo
Flex Spending $416 (deducted from Ex's paycheck but deposited into my checking account)
Ex’s contribution $1317 ($600 avg for daycare, $567 joint bills, $150 his bills still deducted from my checking account)
Tota Income: $5825

Debt:
$4600 0% pay minimum pay $94
$2860 0% pay $200/mo
Total: $294

Bills
Rent: $900 (includes rent + some uttitles)
Phone: $185 (2 smartphones, tablet, hotspot)
Internet: $65
Groceries: $500 (total guess on this but it seems doable for me + 2 DDs)
Fuel: $100
Spending Money: ??
Restaurants: $50
Clothing: $50/avg??
Girls Expenses: $200
Household good etc: $200
Misc Bills: $55 (like netflix and a few random subscriptions)
Car Insurance: $80
Life Insurance: $89
Car Payment: $450 (minimum is $360 but pay more)
My SL: $250
Ex SL: $50 (his bill that’s still deducted from my checking)
Daycare: $1450 (average monthly)
Medical: $125
Total: $4849

Savings:
EF: $75
Sinking Funds: $125 (Christmas, Travel, Birthdays)
My Roth: $100
Ex Roth: $100 (his bill that’s still deducted from my checking)
Total: $400

Overall Expenses: $5543

Right now savings are:
EF: $2000ish
Roth IRA: $13K
401K: $17-18K
Emergency Cash on Hand: $500

It looks like I should have some wiggle room with these numbers but I'm thinking I likely want to increase my sinking funds to include car expenses and maybe up the EF contribution as well.

I'm 34 and I have two young daughters who will both be in school next year. Daycare is not likely to change for the next year. Hopefully for 2016 school year I will be able to eliminate before and after care so I'll only have summer daycare - not assuming this yet though since everything is so up in the air.

[sbcalimom]

Oops, meant to put this on the main page. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I'm so sorry. I hope you're able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yay for having wiggle room!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Second thought, is your XH's contribution legally documented? As in is that the child support order? If not, and in some cases even if it is, IME you cannot rely on it.

[sbcalimom]

It's not legally documented yet but I don't think he would stop supporting his kids just to spite me. I know that may seem naive but he is a good father and won't duck on his responsibilities. That said, I would like to be able to not HAVE to count on it once the girls are out of daycare and we fully separate finances (ie he gets those remaining bills off my accounts). 

Excluding daycare, I can pay all my bills on my own. It's really tight but it's possible. Also, I'm hoping to get somewhat of a raise before the end of the year.

[sbcalimom]

Jul 21, 2015 14:34:27 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

Why not change the his student loan and Roth so that they immediately become deducted from his account? Why complicate it by acting as the middle man?

This is very recent so he just hasn't done it yet. I'm hoping to get him to do that within the next month. I'm just trying to plan though as if that won't stop immediately.

[mmhmm]

I caught your post, sbcalimom, and moved this thread to Your Money for you.

[sbcalimom]

Jul 21, 2015 14:53:06 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

I caught your post, sbcalimom, and moved this thread to Your Money for you.

Thank you! I didn't know how to tag anybody.

[mmhmm]

Jul 21, 2015 14:54:49 GMT -5 sbcalimom said:

Jul 21, 2015 14:53:06 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

I caught your post, sbcalimom, and moved this thread to Your Money for you.

Thank you! I didn't know how to tag anybody.

No problem! Fortunately, I saw your post. Putting a thread where you don't want it to be is something that happens. Easy to fix.

[sbcalimom]

Jul 21, 2015 14:48:34 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

The $89 a month for life insurance seems high. Is that for both of you as well?

You are locked into the flex account for the rest of the plan year, but that seems high as well. I thought the max was $2500 this year. Does that cover part of daycare as well?

I know it is the separation is very recent, but is all the debt in your name? That's pretty scary.

The $416 is daycare flex spending - we take the max of $5K so that's what we can get reimbursed each month. I used to wait and do it once a quarter but now I plan to do it every month.

We do some medical flex spending that's taken out of his check but I'm not sure how much we have left offhand, not a ton as I recall.

The $89 is for both of us. I'd prefer to have that stay under my control so I know the policy is in force. It's for $1 mil on him and $500K on me and they were 20 year term policies we took out about 6 years ago. 

The debt is all in my name though it is mostly joint debt. About $1300 of it is mine alone but the rest is joint as is the car loan.

[mmhmm]

Well, heck, sbcalimom, I guess I could have helped a lot by telling you how to tag!  In the little row of icons at the top of the reply box, just choose the little "man in blue" with the @ sign. Put the username (you can get this by hovering over the person's alias in their mini-profile on the left of their post or, if a member of staff, by hovering over their name where listed as moderator) of the person you want to tag in the resulting box and hit return. That will tag the person you target.  

[mmhmm]

Jul 21, 2015 14:56:57 GMT -5 sbcalimom said:

Jul 21, 2015 14:48:34 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

The $89 a month for life insurance seems high. Is that for both of you as well?

You are locked into the flex account for the rest of the plan year, but that seems high as well. I thought the max was $2500 this year. Does that cover part of daycare as well?

I know it is the separation is very recent, but is all the debt in your name? That's pretty scary.

The $416 is daycare flex spending - we take the max of $5K so that's what we can get reimbursed each month. I used to wait and do it once a quarter but now I plan to do it every month.

We do some medical flex spending that's taken out of his check but I'm not sure how much we have left offhand, not a ton as I recall.

The $89 is for both of us. I'd prefer to have that stay under my control so I know the policy is in force. It's for $1 mil on him and $500K on me and they were 20 year term policies we took out about 6 years ago. 

The debt is all in my name though it is mostly joint debt. About $1300 of it is mine alone but the rest is joint as is the car loan.

So, if I understand correctly, you're now separated and not living together. Looks like the two of you have discussed how to handle the financial end of things, at least to some degree. Is he willing to cooperate in seeing that you and the kids are able to make it without going under? That will be crucial as time passes and it's important to know just how trustworthy he is to keep his word. You may need a Plan B if he's not trustworthy in that regard.

[justme]

Just from a rough look at the numbers, it doesn't seem he's paying half of the girls cost. For one 600 is not half of daycare. Does 567 really cover half their housing, food, clothing, activities etc? Considering the amount of expenses you have a month in comparison I'm leaning towards no.

[t-dog]

Just a hug and a good wishes thought to you sbcalimom

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Have you looked at your state's child support calculator to determine what the required child support will be?

Remember, the person you divorce is not the person you married (Zib, YMAM). 

[Deleted]

I think I'd still get the support in writing, it's not expensive to pull in an attorney if you're just having something written up that you agree on and it will give you some peace of mind.  My first ex and I were always on excellent terms (and still are), but I had the child support written up.  Things change and it sounds like your girls are pretty young so a lot of years to go.  My worry wasn't so much my ex, but any future girlfriends/wives that might end up in the picture and have other ideas about what they felt was "reasonable".  They can have a lot of influence.

[souldoubt]

Jul 21, 2015 14:36:42 GMT -5 sbcalimom said:

It's not legally documented yet but I don't think he would stop supporting his kids just to spite me. I know that may seem naive but he is a good father and won't duck on his responsibilities. 

Being a good parent can easily go the way of the dinosaur during a divorce.  I'm not saying it will but I assume you live in CA based on your name and I know when I was growing up it was a nightmare for my mom to get money from my dad.  In some cases getting money or going back for more took years, literally.  I would get on it now and not count on anything that isn't court required because you need to CYA.  

Edit - I can think of two instances in the last decade where people I'm close to went through a divorce after the spouses had been married for decades.  Right now both dad's are completely out of the picture as far as their adult children are concerned because of how they acted during said divorce.  Money and anger can make people do some terrible things on their own and when you put them together it can get even nastier.  

[sbcalimom]

Daycare: The total for before & after school care plus our babysitter is $1400-$1550 per month depending on whether there are 4 weeks of 5 weeks in the month. We're splitting the daycare costs down the middle, then I get the $416 from flex spending to start. So, if daycare for the month is $1400 then he'll give me $500 and the remainder of his half is made up of the flex spending amount. 

Girls: The girls are with me 1 week and him the next though they sleep at my house every night. He puts them to bed and then comes over to get them up in the morning and ready for daycare/school. Since he has them half the time, he's covering all their food and misc costs during those times. We average about $200/mo on spending for them for clothes, supplies etc so that was included in the calculations. The reason his half is lower is because our medical care is deducted automatically from his paycheck. We're splitting the cost of that for the family and then deducting that from what he would be giving me. Right now we're adding both our rents and utilities and splitting them in half plus he's subsiding their food at my house since they're here a lot more. Besides daycare, they don't have a ton of regular expenses.

I do need to spend some time looking into how it works with 50/50 custody in my state (we don't live in CA anymore). I am also considering going to an attorney for some advice since this is all so new to me.

I do plan to file separation paperwork within the next few weeks. The first goal was getting us moved and settled and then tackling that. Since we aren't planning to divorce for at least a year, separation ppw that lays out the details of support and custody for now is the best we can do.

After we file for divorce, I will likely end up with full custody because he plans to move elsewhere next year. That will obviously change things drastically because if I have full custody then child support is calculated completely differently at that point.

ETA: We will definitely be doing formal stuff for the divorce and I will be considering custody, child support, college costs etc as carefully as possible. My parents were divorced and fought over money constantly so that is at least helpful now to anticipate possible issues. And, if need be, I have no problem garnishing wages etc to collect. He really does love his children so as much as we can't get along, I do think he will support them. Not to say I won't legally protect myself as much as I can when we divorce, but I do think he'll keep up his responsibilities.

[The Captain]

sbcalimom - I am sorry your family is going through this.

One thing to think about (among many) is that the $5K childcare flex-spending limit is per household.  Once you divorce is final you and your Ex will have two households and should try to coordinate on this to maximize the benefit to you both.  Same for HSA etc.

Just be careful not to have too much withheld (as you did mention you hope this expense will go down next year).

[giramomma]

The car is a rather large payment on your salary alone. How much longer do you have to pay on the loan?

Also, I think your groceries is high, unless you do organic for the dirty dozen or more. We are a family of 5, and if we are more careful, we spend $500/month in groceries. DS was gone for camp, and I was shocked at how much longer milk lasted when he wasn't around.

I also might look into getting Ting or something for your phone to reduce those costs as soon as you can.

What's all included in the girl's expenses?

[sbcalimom]

SS1954 - I don't think I'm explaining this well, sorry. The flex spending is coming from his paycheck so he's giving me $500 towards daycare and then splitting the $416 with me. He doesn't want to deal with filing the claims so he said if I filed it, he'd split it with me and just reduce what he gives me by $200. It gets direct deposited into my checking account. So instead of giving me $1500ish, he'll give me $1300ish each month. I still come out ahead. I have no idea how filing jointly works but we'll likely be married officially for most of next year so not sure if that will change anything? I imagine I'll want to claim both girls if we can work that out.

Giramomma - I think we have a few years left on the car, I need to check though. Right now, part of what he gives me is to cover half the car payment. We have another paid off car that he'll likely take when we divorce but he'll have to somehow buy me out of that if I'm taking over the payment. 

For groceries, I really don't know how much to estimate so I wanted to start high. We used to spend an absolute ton of money on groceries - like $800-$1000/mo for a family of 4. We do buy a decent amount of organic and we were both doing the Keto diet (high protein and fat, low carbs) which is somewhat pricey but we wasted a lot of food and he also just bought whatever he wanted so it was really hard to stick to a budget. According to YNAB, so far this month I'm at $259 and that includes replacing some items from moving and a few Costco food court-type meals for the girls so $500 may be way too high of an estimate. I think I'll need less than $100 for the rest of the month which would put me around $350. If that continues, I'll lower my budget but I'd rather over-estimate especially during the difficult transition time.

The Captain: I didn't know that about flex spending! I don't have access to it through my work now unfortunately since I work for a pretty small company. My boss though has discussed adding to our benefits as we grow so that could change next year. Even just summer care for both of them is almost $5K so I imagine even if they don't do a ton of daycare outside of summer we get still both claim a bit.

ETA: I think the car loan is another 2ish years. We took out a 6 year loan but we've always paid extra and we've had it for almost 3 years. I've been horrible with keeping track of our finances because things have been so bad for so long in a ton of ways. I'm working to get better but I have a whole list of things to figure out. I'll add that to the list!

[Deleted]

Yeah, I agree.  I don't understand how that money from the flex account you're not counting as part of your contribution to daycare when it's from money coming out of your paycheck. 

eta:  Oops.  Never mind, we cross-posted.

[sbcalimom]

Any major categories I'm missing? Anything else I need to think about? Thanks all, you've been very helpful already!

[marvholly]

sbcalimom

My DD2 was in EXACTLY your shoes 1 year ago. She, too, worked out a new budget and based it on her income alone. Divorce was final last Dec. Everything has worked out quite well.

 She refinanced the house to her name only. He has made all payments in a timely manner (child support is auto deducted and sent bi-weekly) including payments to her for incidental bills for the kids (camp, classes, medical......).

He has been very good about his time with the kids, keeping them a bit extra when she has needed it.  Then again, she has also been willing to work with hime to rearrange Dad time when he needed it.

[TheHaitian]

OP I got nothing to add, seems like you got some pretty good advice here.

((hugs)) and wishing you the best!

[Peace77]

When do your 0% credit card offers expire?

I see nothing to pay for an attorney.
Are haircuts included in household expenses?

I suggest paying only the minimum on the car loan and increasing your emergency fund and savings to pay for car repairs, attorney, etc.

I would increase your emergency fund to one month's worth of expenses after you have paid your attorneys fees.  You and your husband need separate attorneys.

[nikiz628]

You have received some pretty excellent tips, so I don't have anything "helpful" to add. Just wanted to say that I am sorry you are going through this...and kudos for getting this all figured out now! I hope the budget works out as planned and everything from here on out goes as smoothly as possible.

[ners]

Jul 21, 2015 14:34:27 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

Why not change the his student loan and Roth so that they immediately become deducted from his account? Why complicate it by acting as the middle man?

I second getting this changed soon.  What is to stop him from increasing the payment?

[sbcalimom]

The $4600 0% expires towards end of next year so I'll likely transfer it again to another 0% when that happens. The $2800 0% is 18 mos from now but it should be paid off. Most of it is from 2014 taxes so we're throwing $200/mo at it until that part is gone and then I'll bang out the rest on my own pretty quickly.

I'm hoping to have a month's expenses saved by the end of the year. I seem to have some extra in my checking account right now that I've been hoarding during the move so I'll transfer that to savings once July ends. So hopefully I'll be that much closer soon.

I'm leaving on a trip soon to visit family for two weeks but I'm going to focus on setting up an attorney visit and the separation paperwork as soon as I get back.

[sbcalimom]

Jul 24, 2015 6:34:47 GMT -5 ners said:

Jul 21, 2015 14:34:27 GMT -5 @southernsusana said:

Why not change the his student loan and Roth so that they immediately become deducted from his account? Why complicate it by acting as the middle man?

I second getting this changed soon.  What is to stop him from increasing the payment?

I am going to ask him to change both payments in August. His budget is pretty tight so I doubt he'll increase the amounts but maybe you meant stop? If he stops covering those, I will just cancel the auto pays and let him deal with the consequences. I have access to both accounts so I could stop them both pretty much immediately.