I can’t believe i haven’t blogged about this yet! Man, and i call this a personal finance blog? Shoooooooot. Guess losing one salary doesn’t merit much around here! haha….So today’s post is about how we’re putting Mrs. Budgetsaresexy through grad school. AND, you’ll be happy to hear that she pulled straight A’s this first semester!!! Keep doing your thing baby :)

The last i mentioned, the Mrs. had gotten into 2 good schools, but couldn’t decide which to choose. School #1 was a more prestigious one (at least in ranking), but didn’t offer any scholarship whatsoever, and actually didn’t offer her specific major. School #2 offered a full scholarship AND paid teaching assistantship, specialized in her major, but wasn’t as highly ranked.

After some visits and budget review w/ yours truly, she *luckily* decided to go w/ School #2 ;) I stood by her her either way, but deep down the financial part of me was like “ohhhhhhhhhhh mama! pick #2, pick #2!”. Cuz you have to remember, her schooling now wipes away her hefty $50k/year salary which means we’re rolling on ONE salary for 4 years now! So this def. took the sting out a little ;) There’s a whole mess of variables that play into this, so i thought i’d break it down a bit for ya:

All amounts needed to cover 1 year while in school:

• $14,400 to cover house/livings expenses normally received from her $50k salary
• $30,000 yearly tuition
• $2,000 miscellaneous fees/books
• TOTAL: $46,400

All amounts we have been fortunate to receive for the 1st year:

• $8,000 (est. after taxes) Teaching Assistantship salary – $12k/year
• $30,000 Scholarship for yearly tuition
• $12,000 Sale of oil stock a while back – saved for this reason
• $x,xxx Summer internship/job
• TOTAL: $50,000+

Man, looking at the numbers like this really does a doozy on the brain! As crazy as it sounds, i’d never broken it down like this…makes you realize a) how EXPENSIVE school is, and b) how blessed we are!!! Damn. I’ll have to remember to thank The Man upstairs again at church this week ;)

So, as you can tell from the above numbers, 80% of the amount needed each year is taken care of from the scholarship & T/A. That leaves us with at LEAST (the Mrs. still needs “play” money and all) $8,400 needed to cover the rest of the yearly expenses once the stock money disappears next year. We still have a majority of the “pay it forward” money we received a while back, but we’re hoping the summer job and other budget-y things make up for the rest.

So 1 semester down, 7 more to go! Yikes. But as my Auntie always says, “when you’re on the right path, things have a way of working out for you.” and so far so good! In the meantime, i’m conjuring up some grad school ideas of my own for when she’s done… I’m thinking either a PHD in Texas Hold ’em, or a Masters in Fieldgoal Kicking so i can help out my aching Washington Redskins ;) Either way, i’m sexcited!