Budgeting Woes

I thought making and maintaing a budget for 'regular life' was difficult - whoa, was I wrong!

As part of this adventure, we have to create a monthly budget and think through all the 'start up' costs of us moving to Tanzania. This budget then adds up to become our yearly fundraising goal.

There are obvious items from our current budget that we will need to keep on the new budget: food, utilities, rent, tithe, student loans, etc. Then there are new items that I'm somewhat overwhelmed thinking through - medical & life insurance to start. We've always been handed a policy through one of our jobs & told 'here is what it covers, here's what it doesn't & here is how much is taken out of your check'. We've never had much of a choice. I never knew how incredibly overwhelming it is! Not only do we have to navigate the many options out there, we have to consider things like emergency evacution, coverage in the US and Tanzania for when we're home during the summer, and do we want/need maternity coverage.

Then there are little things, like diapers. How much is a pack of diapers in Tanzania? How do you find this type of information out? And is it practical to continue with cloth, or is the humidity too much to compete with for line drying? And if we can use cloth, will we even have enough luggage space to bring them?

And because of our specific situation, we will be considered 'self-employed'. We have to budget in self-employment taxes to our monthly budget. Huh?

Just one of many tid bits that feel a bit overwhelming right now. It probably doesn't help that I feel this pressure (from myself) to have this all done before baby arrives.

We could certainly use your prayers as we try to make wise and faithful decisions regarding money and budgets!