Budget for July: FAIL

I had every intention of posting my full budget for July on here, and then tracking how it compares to what we actually spent. 

The only problem, the July budget is completely screwed up.  It's a 3-paycheck month, so we have extra income. We're also expecting a substantial $4500 check for self-employment, but we don't know if we'll receive it in a few days or a few weeks. Together, this will amount to nearly $5900 in extra income for the upcoming month (that is, above and beyond what we normally take home).

But we're also planning to pay down a huge chunk of credit card debt, just over $6200, in preparation for the looming 150% increase in minimum payments on Chase. And I'd like to maintain a $5000 balance in our emergency fund, which means we need to set aside an extra $3000 by mid-August, to cover fall tuition and the upcoming house repair. 

 And because we decided to use the entire $4500 check now, instead of setting aside some for income taxes,  we had to modify our income tax withholdings at work so that they're taking out extra. If we didn't, we would end up owing nearly $2000 next April, which would kick us into the category where we'd also have to pay interest and penalties for underpayment!  Instead, I estimated what we should pay in estimated quarterlies, and just divided that by the number of months left in the year. The end result will be the same, come tax time, but for the rest of the year our take-home pay will be $275-300/mo less. 

July is going to be an unusual month for budgeting. Lots of extra money coming in, huge extra payments towards debt/savings, and a reduction in normal income. Dollar-wise, I think it all works out. In terms of cash-flow, I have no clue how it will shake out. There's plenty to take care of all the essential bills and minimum payments this month, I'm just not sure when all the extra payments will actually be made. 

So instead of posting an itemized budget, I'm just going to post the targets for the month of the July:

• Reduce credit card balance from $32,747 (as of 6/24) to $25,780
• Pay off completely all but two largest credit cards
• Increase emergency fund to $8000 ($3000 of which will be short-term savings)