The Problem

Okay, here is all of my monthly bills as promised. Right off the bat you can clearly see the problem. My monthly expenses exceed my income by over $1000. I have managed so far by playing "shell games" with my expenses. On a side note real quick, i want to point out that the items marked "Not being paid", are bills in my wife's name, or soon to be ex wife i should say. Now, back to my shell games. One part of the shell games are the credit cards and the food cost. Separate, they are about $800. But, by buying food on the credit cards, and then shift my food budget to my credit cards, i lower my monthly bills by about $300 a month. That leaves $700. And this is what is finally going to be a problem this month. Typically what i have done in the past to overcome this, is take my income tax return, deposit it in a separate account, and pay two or three bills this way. What i did last year, was pay the two car loans and the 300 student loan out of this account. As you are doing the math, thats a yearly total of about 9600. I do not get that much back in taxes. Last year i got lucky. I took my tax return, invested it, and a month later took it back out 300% richer due to a sure thing. This year, i wont be able to do that. My tax return is going to be $5600. Out of the $5600, i have to pay 600 for car ins. Yes, its marked as a monthly bill, but i have not paid it in the past few months due to issues with getting all the bills paid. That brings down my tax return to 5000. I also need to pay my garbage bill which is 6 months past due, thats about another $100, $4900 left. My goal is to move out(im still living with my ex) by the end of june, so 800 * 4 = 3200. i will deposit that into my account for those three bills, and the remaining i will put into savings. I will discuss in a later post why its not going to bills or pay down bills, as i have a reason for this.

My Monthly Pay: $2000

My Bills:
Satellite TV................... 60
Cell Phone..................... 120
Car Insurance.................. 115
Food........................... 500
Electric Company............... 150
Student Loan................... 50
Student Loan................... 0 (other) Not being paid
Land line Phone/Internet....... 96
Student Loan................... 120
Student Loan................... 60
Medical Bills.................. 50
Student Loan................... 300
Credit Card.................... 55 (Capital One)
Credit Card.................... 0 (Bank of America)
Credit Card.................... 130 (Sears)
Credit Card.................... 150 (PNC)
Credit Card.................... 0 (Capital One,other) Not being paid
Credit Card.................... 0 (Discover, other) Not being paid
Credit Card.................... 0 (Citibank, other) Not begin paid
Credit Card.................... 0 (Macys)
Credit Card.................... 160 (Pool)
Mortgage....................... 510
Car Loan....................... 300
Car Loan....................... 200
Garbage........................ 15
Gas for car.................... 60

Total.......................... 3201