My husband wants to turn over the bills and budget to me for next year. He says he is not disciplined enough. He knows I read and listen to Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, etc.


I like Dave Ramsey's plan, we had to use our emergency fund for car repairs, and have not paid it back. So we need to start there.

I am so used to my husband figuring out what money was allotted for each category, I need your help. I want to start from scratch, we need to include school expenses for the kids (book orders, lunch, field trips, etc).

Basically, we have our budget set so all bills are paid, usually more than the minimums, and then all the rest was gas, food, entertainment, fun, clothing,etc.

I'd like to work on getting just about everything into some category, not that it came from "whatever is left after the bills are paid"

I'd appreciate any tips, we are going to sit down together one night soon and go over everything. What is holding us back is DH may return to his old job, and they gave him a partial mileage reimbursement, and also he has a food allowance of over $150 a month for lunch or dinner. So we'll know soon what he is doing and if he goes back there, he has requested his former employer pay the difference in our insurance now and what it'd be if he returns there. They were open to that initially but he needs to hear it again! If they don't then it is a few hundred a month, compared to $7.50 (yes, 7.50) per week!

I'd like to be prepared with some more categories and what should fall into them. I know school stuff, and it is miscellaneous has gotten out of hand this year. Seems like every week it is something!

How do you budget stuff like Sam's Club membership? Magazine subscription? Postage?
Do I divide book rental and other money for school by 12 and put it aside all year? HELP!

He has done this for years, we keep 2 checking accounts, and are rethinking what we need as far as banking. I know I'd like an ING account or something to stash the $1000 emergency fund, so it is not too easy to get to. Having not done this for so long is scaring me!

You said you believe in Dave Ramsey, is there a reason you don't just follow his plan then?

For those nonreoccuring expeses - Sam's Club, postage, auto maintance, newspaper subscription, etc you set upa freedom account and transfer $ in each month to cover that.

Sit down and lay it all out on the table per se. What are you normal monthly expenses, what kinds of debts do you have, etc, etc, etc.

Dave Ramsey is having a sale right now, all books, CD's, software, etc is on sale for $10, perhaps you should look to him for some guidenace.


ING holds my EF, but I also have a smaller buffer in my checkbook since it does take a few days to get ING $ transfered back over.

Good luck

Good luck to you.
I am trying to figure out a good system myself..... other ladies on here are well versed and I am sure can help u out*

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CaRtEr
April 19, 2008

I would recommend looking into a computer budget program like Microsoft Money or Quiken. We use Microsoft money- well dh does. He is a controller so accounting is his field- so he handles the finances- but if I had to do it myself I could use the software. You plug in all your income, it asks about medical insurance costs- then you set up catagories for each expense- groceries, eating out, school supplies and such. Each week we download all our transactions from the bank and then plug them into Microsoft money and it keeps a running balance of everything. It also tells you when you are near your total for the month. I like the reports- you can pull up each category and tell how much you spent whenever. I know some love the cash based system- but for us it was too easy to spend a bit here and there and then it went unaccounted for. So now we mainly use our debit cards and earn a bit back each year with them. I like the ability of being able to track everything online with the computer vs having to write everything down in a notebook. You can do it!

I agree with Denvergirlie.
You listen to dave, but do you read his books? Get the Total money makeover from his website, she's right, it's only $10 right now! Read it (it's a very easy read, I read the entire thing in a weekend), and start there. But here's what I do. It may or may not help, because our situations be different, and I don't follow dave to the "T" so to speak. (meaning, we aren't in so much debt that we need to drop cable and cell phones or anything like that)
I have an excel spreadsheet that shows every monthly bill and what is "a guestimate" for that, based on what we paid the year before. It's listed with the months of the year on the top row and down the side, I list all the bills, ALL the bills, including my birth control every month.
When I get the bill in and pay it for that month, I change the assumed number to the actual bill price. When the month is done, I highlight that column and we move to the next.
If you pay for those non-recurring things maybe once or twice a year, and want to keep those types of things all together in the "bills", that's fine, but add up all those costs, and divide that up between the months, and every month, that's your "non recurrents" row on the bill list. If the total per month is $5, make sure you put that $5 into whatever account holds that money. Give yourself a row for "fun", "miscellaneous/school", "groceries", "monthly medication", "savings", etc....give every dollar a name. And if you get to the bottom of the list and you have money left over from all those list, add that to your savings. I know you need some lee-way on that type of thing, so you might break even, or you might have a few bucks extra. But put it somewhere.
Also, I generally overestimate my guesstimates, to be safe. That way we end up spending less, rather than more than we bargained for.
Also, I have another sheet on that spreadsheet that has every actual bill that comes in and their due dates, and I split them up and pay one half from one check and the other from the second check. that way, I'm not spending every dime in the beginning of the month, and nothing in the second, because you never know when a birthday will come up and you need that extra $40 or something. I hope this all makes sense, and I know it's long, sorry for that!
That's just what we do and it works well for us. I hope it helps!

Thanks for your suggestions. I have read Total Money Makeover from the library. I'd like to check it out again, as I read it back in September. We did create the emergency fund, and used it. At the time, DH was NOT on board, and then a few weeks later, we did create that emergency fund. We had the $1000 in less than 6 weeks, but needed it for a car repair and have not built it up again. Now he is wanting me to take over the budget and bill paying. His does have a spreadsheet he uses that he created. We do have Quicken, we keep the checkbook on it. I will have to learn to use the whole program.

We don't need to give up cable, or my cell or anything like that. Although if we could we could pay down debt faster. However, we are not behind in payments on anything. It is that we don't have enough discipline with the money we do have! Groceries for one is out of control the past few months. And stops for coffee, lunch or dinner on the run, etc.

I LOVE DAVE! I'd suggest reading him again before you get started! His book really got me motivated to start! I've slacked off a bit and have decided I need to re-read the book, or start listening to his pod casts again! Oh, and if you can get your DH to read it or listen to it by checking out the CD this would help A LOT! That's what I've asked my DH to do for me for my Christmas present - read or listen to the book!

I used to use Quicken too, but I wasn't able to really SEE where my money was going! I know I didn't use all the features available, I would for sure have to play with it more if I ever go back to it! Of course since I used to work for the company who makes Quicken and have friends there still supporting the other products let me add... if you get Turbo Tax at Tax time you can generally get a free copy of Quicken!!

Like Chopey, I've come up with a spreadsheet! Mine pretty much likes like a bank register! It has the date running down the first column. Next is the Decription, then the amount spent or deposited and then the total! Each month gets its own tab across the bottom! Each beginning balance is pulled forward from the month before. Doing it this way (as opposed to Quicken) lets me estimate expenses! I get to see balances carried forward and can estimate larger payments to the credit card.

Another tab in my spreadsheet is labeled DEBT SNOWBALL! It's basically an amortization schedule! I have each of my debts listed... student loans, credit cards, minivan... I have them listed in order from smallest to largest! It has a place for me to put the interest rate and it will calculate out interest that will be occuring over time! (an estimate of course) As I update it and put in the payments I've made I am able to see when it'll be paid off and then when it is I add that payment amount to the next debt on that tab! Hard to explain but I LOVE it!!! (PM me if you want to see a sample of my spreadsheets! I made up a sample one for my sister to send to her friends - complete with an example couple and everything)

I'd say first thing you should do is for sure get that emergency fund back up! Anytime you have to use it you should stop your repayment and get it back up again! And get rid of the credit cards! I PERSONALLY don't like the idea of closing them! We want to move soon and I don't want to screw up our credit! I DO agree with getting rid of them! I LOVE the cash system! I'm really bad about getting it weekly (that's DH's job) but when I do get it, it really works! The key to doing the cash system is actually taking out the cash and agreeing that once it's gone it's gone! NO MORE going back to take out more and FOR SURE no more using the credit cards!

My system SO FAR has been for DH to take out $200 at the beginning of each week (which I have already put in my spreadsheet for the next two years)! He gets it out on Monday's and when he gets home I take the $200 and do my weekly shopping trip! When I get home we're supposed to split whatever cash is left over! Generally though if we have more than $20 each I'll take the extra and put it away for next week! I really think we can get by on $20 each! SO, if I have $60 left over then he gets $20, I get $20 and $20 goes to next week! That next Monday I have him take out $180 instead of $200 and anything extra in our checking account goes towards the debt! Now I think $800 a month is WAY too much for us to be spending on food! (family of 5, but one is only nursing) My resolution for the new year is to get a GOOD menu started and start shopping MUCH better! I'm hoping to get this number WAY down! Oh, that and stay out of the stores - no fun shopping for me!!

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Stay at home mom to my 3 boys... ages 5, 3 & 1!

I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

SAHMto3BOYS, I like that idea of how you split the leftover grocery money. DH is actually meeting with his former employer right now to see if he will be returning to work there, with a possible start date of Feb 1st. So if he does, it is first of all a saving in tolls (it is over $5 a day currently and would go to 80 cents!). Then he would have a $170 food allowance. So both of those are very helpful, not to mention a little less gas.

I just finished jotting down all the expenses I can think of to budget for. I also started on another piece of paper, Holiday Expenses to budget for. I always seem to fail to add in postage, having cards made, baking expenses, school gift exchange, etc. So when we spend more at Christmas than allotted it is because I only budgeted for GIFTS, not the whole season. So I am happy I did that tonight, while the holidays are here and it's all fresh!

I really like Mary Hunts method of a Freedom Account, basically you take your unbudgeted expenses - like Christmas, car maintenance, property taxes, clothes, etc - and you budget how much $$ you want to go towards those accounts monthly. Set up a seperate savings or checking account (ING has a free checking account now, that is where our FA is) and deposit the allocated money in the account monthly. To keep track you can use a spreadshet or notebook, just keep track of how much $$ goes in and out monthly and balance against the bank statement. Our FA has been a lifesaver . I think Dave Ramsey's plan is similar, except his plan uses cash in envelopes (it's been a while since I have read his books) and we can't have cash like that lying around the house.

As far as the credit cards go, I have 1 that I use and link to my PP and ebay account and use for purchases online (then take the money from the FA to pay immediately). I'm just too leary of having things linked to my checking account, it would take someone a few minutes to wipe out my bank accounts and me a few weeks to get my $$ back. At least with a CC you have a bit more protection.