I like the monthly reports money gives me. Seeing the income - expences chart is a good way to determine how well we did. If we are in the black then we did good. I also like looking at the pi grafts of where our money went I like months where the morgage section is a higher percentage. For it to be higher means we spent less in all the other categories

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006 &

Organizer of the Coupon Clippers of Tacoma

I use quicken for home and quick books for DH's business. I have budgets set up for everything, I check them at least weekly to see how we are doing. It helps me tremendously to have the visual.

I used to have a small notebook where I would tally our savings from all sources every two weeks. I would note what was in the change jar, savings account, stocks and bonds, and 401k. I got away from doing it but think I'll go back.

I also jot down my bills each month. This makes it easy to compare what my bills were last month and last year.

I save all food receipts for each month so I can compare also.

The only visual I use is the savings account bank statement. I like the visuals that you all have suggested. I'm going to have to use the thermometer or something like that for a visual. Thanks for the ideas!!

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www.myspace.com/vioburn

Frugal is being wise with your money and resources and cheap is forcing everyone else to.

Check out my blog, I'm starting to add more to it, as I can...www.ginnyv.com

All of these visual ideas sound great, but they also sound overwhelmingly time-consuming to me. Do you find this to be the case?
Also, do any of you have a way to provide links to some of the forms you use (blank, of course) to save the time in creating them. I am a copier and would love to have a blank form I could adapt to what I need. Not sure if this is possible, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Thanks.:happy dance:

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Tabatha, mom to
Isaac, 8
Mallory, 6
Elena, 2

Can you post your worksheets so we might use them too? The thermometer is a cute visual. Thanks for sharing.

Oh my goodness, this made me CRY!!! You don't know how much that means to me. All I can say is thank you. That was a wonderful thing to say.

Wow! Big thanks to you. You guys are AWESOME and I can always count on you to keep me motivated. Thank you big time!!

To answer the original question, we use LOTS of visuals. Here's what we use:
1. Budget forms (from Dave Ramsey) - we sit down and complete them every month.
2. Irregular spending forms - forms that we use to budget money from our part-time jobs
3. A Dave Ramsey bumper sticker on the fridge that says, "Debt is normal. Be weird!"
4. A debt-free date chart. Each month we figure out when we will be debt free, and put the new date on that chart.
5. For our summer goal, we have a thermometer-like thing on the fridge. For each $1000 that we pay toward debt, we color in one rectangle. It's awesome to see how many rectangles are filled in!
6. My dh also has charts on his computer, which let us know how much money we still owe.
7. We have other various forms from Dave Ramsey, too.

Visuals totally work for us!!

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If you need to get in touch with me, my email is teach1107910@yahoo.com.