Car Refinancing And Looking at My Budget

This is actually a multi part post, this post has generated my next couple posts that have been swirling around in my brain.

I filled out the application for the car refinance to take to the credit union tomorrow. I also had to take a look at my income and boy did I surprise myself! I work about 7.5 weekend out of every 8. My income should break down like this.

Paycheck 1 from "Full Time Job": Cell phone, land line, 1/4 groceries, 1/2 gas for the month, car insurance, health insurance co-pay and have some extra for misc (savings, utilities).

Paycheck 2 from "Full Time Job": Should cover mortage payment, student loan, 1/4 groceries, 1/2 gas and most remaining utilities with some extra.

Paycheck 1 from Part Time Job: Should cover my car note with room to spare (and in the future it will be snowflaked toward the principal.)

Paycheck 2 from PT Job: Should cover taxes and remaining 1/2 food.My part time job does not deduct taxes, so I need to plan for tax time next year.

Paycheck 3 from PT Job: Should be straight savings/Efund.

Paycheck 4 form PT Job: Fun $$, hobby expense and putting cash towards animal care (food, vet, etc) with some leftover.

The leftovers from Full Time Job should (and have in the past) paid for my car note, but I specifically took my current weekend job with the above plan in mind.

This has not happened. And I'll explain in my post tomorrow. I sort of had this figured out in my head, but did not follow through with it for a couple reasons. I had some unexpected household bills (greater utilities costs due to our frigid January, I kept my heat on higher than I normally would have when I was away each weekend), putting money towards my trip in March, not getting paid while on my trip (I lost 2 weekends of work), replacing parts of my wardrobe that sadly needed to be replaced, routine car maintenance, and my three month experiment of money and friends.

My experiment was expensive, but it was an experiment I needed to conduct and I'll share with you the outcome and some decisions I've made with my life based on this experiment. What I can tell you was it was a large eye opener for me, a large expensive eye opener for me, but I am very glad I did this experiment and grateful for the outcome.

Hope you all had a great Holiday weekend!