Funny Guy Friday... Setting the Budget...

   As we prepared our taxes this year, Cheryl and I decided to set a budget for the rest of the fiscal year. As a result of this decision, I have been paying special attention to the recent discussions in Washington D.C. and have decided that I will use some of the strategies of our own beloved elected officials to help us come up with an acceptable family budget.
   My first step was to prioritize the budget issues. As a result, I requested that each family member identify two special budgetary items and estimate as to what portion of our budget should be dedicated to those two items. I picked food and shelter, and we decided to dedicate 40% of the budget to those issues. We were off to a good start.
   Cheryl insisted on charitable donations and Irma, the cleaning lady. I can understand one of these interests, but do we really need to keep giving to the church? Anyway, together they combined for 20% of the family budget.
   Grace went with great vacations and beauty supplies, coming in at a 15% of the budget. I like vacations, and 14% for beauty supplies didn't seem unreasonable---anything for my baby girl.
   Matthew shocked us all with a request for an indoor baseball facility. I had to explain that qualifies as a special request outside of the budget, and we are going to require some clever fundraising for that project. But not to worry, Daddy has been paying attention, and I have some ideas on how we can raise some cash for that project! So after a short filibuster, Matthew went with sports and entertainment at another 15% of the budget.
    Noah, our freshman delegate to the family quickly requested art supplies and candy at a modest 5% of the budget.  Noah is my man----I love fiscally conservative, albeit naive, little  freshman!
    Wait a second, we have not included the cost of our interests in the condo in Ocean City or the townhouse in Towson. We have not included transportation costs, which I guess may be going up here in a few months.  We have not included medical and insurance costs. We have not even included our monthly household bills. We have not included the cost of holidays and gift giving. We entertain a lot, and we have not set aside any money for that. Wow, those things are going to take up about 55% of our income. Lets do some math: 40% + 20% + 15% + 15% + 5% + 55% = 150%.
    Well, you may think that this is a problem, but if you do, you have not been watching the news. Based on my research on the federal budget, WE ARE RIGHT ON TARGET!
    So now what? How do I make a 100% of my salary pay for 150% of my expenses?
    First, I find some more money. I start with what I did not spend in the prior fiscal year.  We did not refinish our bathroom like we had discussed... so I saved approximately $25,000 (I am using our our highest bid for budgetary reasons). We will home school this year so I did not spend any money on private schools (forget about the fact that the kids went to public schools---the fact remains, we could have sent them to private school and chose not to), so we saved another $21,000. So far we are doing great. But there is more.
    I saved money on repairs to our Honda Odyssey last year by getting rid of it five years ago. Seems silly but the fact remains we did not spend money on that vehicle, so according to the rules of Washington D.C., I get to count that as a savings. Add an additional $5,000 to the coffers.
   We thought about going to Las Vegas for our anniversary, but did not so we saved another $7,500. On second thought, that would have been a great trip, so make it an even $10,000 in savings.
   We also just decided that we are going to save $25,000 in 2011. This extra money will be helpful in meeting our other budgetary goals.
    So if my math is correct, just from these few line items, I have an extra $86,000 for our budget.
    Whew, these savings look pretty darn good. One problem though. I don't... actually... have... that... money. Not a problem at all, as I stated earlier, I have been paying attention to our fiscally responsible leaders. Based on my research, I now have two options.
    First, we could go to our basement and print some money. This, of course, is ridiculous. Everybody knows that if you just keep printing money, the value of the dollar will plummet. This is a silly option that no one but six-year-old freshman delegate Noah would champion. No, I take that back, even Noah would not do such a silly thing as print money. What was I thinking?---only a fool would do that. On to option two....
    I need to go somewhere and borrow that money. This should be no problem at all. There is a nice Chinese fellow that has loaned me a ton of money in the past. Hey, wait a minute, if this Chinese fellow loaned me a bunch of money in the past, shouldn't I have included the payments that I make to him in my family budget?
    Naaaah! Why would we do that, it will give us less money in our budget! They don't do it in Washingon, so why should I?
    Cheryl suggested a third option, that we spend less. Wow, do you really think that will work? Do you think that if we spend what we make, that if we live within our means, that we might come out ahead?  She suggested that we spend less on vacations, that we stop eating out, that we only buy what we need, and we use what we already have.
    I had to explain to her that these cuts to the family budget are draconian.
    I don't know exactly what that word means, but it is a word that I heard a lot during the budget debate. I think it means that if a cut makes sense, but would mean that someone would have to go without something that they really really really....really like, then the cut is draconian.
    I was able to offer an acceptable compromise to her outrageous proposal----I told her that I would stop buying those pecan twirls that I get about once a week when I stop to get gas on my way into work. This little bit of horse trading was just enough to get the family budget approved.
    I did get one concession... the big pecan twirl compromise does not kick in until December, just in time for the 2012 budget debate.
    As you can all imagine, we are looking forward to the rest of the year as we have some serious money to spend. But I really feel bad about that indoor baseball facility for Matthew. After all, he deserves it, he is a good boy and dare I say, is entitled to a nice indoor baseball facility. So instead of saying no, I have decided that every reader of this blog will be charged a small fee every time that they log on to the Cherylyouaremine website---you can refer to it as a blog tax if you like.
   By analyzing taxes that were never actually assessed in the same fashion as the President and Congress analyze taxes that were never actually assessed, I can honestly say that it has cost me hundreds of thousands of your dollars by not previously taxing you. That's correct, it has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars because I have not taken your money.
    You're welcome!
    Don't worry, I will invest (that's another word that I thought that I knew the meaning of but now I am not so sure) the money in the future and in future worthy projects---like an indoor baseball facility in my son's precinct.
    So if I were you, I would budget for this new blog tax. It's really easy to do, you can call me if you need any tips and if you want, I can introduce you to my Chinese friend.