Money Tips

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Permalink Reply by Sarah on August 7, 2009 at 2:39pm

Hi everyone...this is a subject that is near and dear to my life. It took a long time for me to get our finances under control. We had so much debt because both my husband and I were so impulsive we would just spend spend spend. After many attempts I finally got us on a written budget. I entered all of our bills and the "normal" amount due onto a spreadsheet. I check them off as they get paid (using auto bill pay). Also, another helpful thing for me was to go to a $0 budget. Meaning, I leave enough money to pay the bills in my account. I withdraw the rest and put it in envelopes marked with what the money is intended for; gas, groceries etc. Actually spending CASH instead of using my card has really helped me "see" what I'm spending.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Ellen on August 8, 2009 at 2:38pm

Kudos for your hard work. You are fortunate that you have a willing spouse. I did the same thing you did, every week cash went into envelopes. This was right after my husband and I had to file bankruptcy for medical reasons. However, my husband would not go along with it. He did for awhile. He's a truck driver and we agreed he only needed $50.00 while he was out on the road. We also were able to apply for a $300. credit card which was just for emergencies. And, he knew he couldn't use it because $300. added up fast. Then, when the house of cards fell, it was when our bank gave us debit cards. Now he no longer sticks to his $50. a week. I took a stance that if he didn't want to follow the budget then he was to take over paying all the bills and I didn't want to be verbally abused when our accounts was overdrawn. Being he didn't want to learn how to keep up with our check registry as I had it set-up on the computer, I handed him one of those paper registries you get with your checks. That lasted all of 2 weeks. So, I stuck to my guns and refused to keep track of any of our money or the budget. Well, that blew up in my face because the check registry has not been done for well over six years. Now he is mad and in my face because we are three year behind in our income taxes. I was a certified income tax prepare for H & R Block. So, I knew that if we didn't owe any income taxes, we had three years to get them in or lose the money. Now I am faced with catching up with all this in order to get the last three years in. I had a life-altering health condition, which I have very little energy to not only go out and get a job, but to get much done around our house. Paper piles are over the place, we are always getting collection calls, usually from medical costs. And, I am the one at home alone to deal with this because he is gone for a couple weeks at a time. I get so tired and depressed because he doesn't see his part in it. Jo Ellen

Sarah said:

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Permalink Reply by Hope on November 12, 2009 at 3:49pm

I am struggling with maintaining a routine, paying bills, recording what was spent, what is needed, etc. As usual, I am gungho for a bit, then BANG, downhill I go. Sadly, this has affected my ability to be a good steward of our money; thus, costing us finacial secruity. Once again, I am trying to focus and remain structured in this area. My goal is to follow Dave Ramseys system and hope I can maintain the discipline needed in order to strenthen our budget.
Hope

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Permalink Reply by Jo Ellen on November 12, 2009 at 4:34pm

Hope:

Just the other day I posted a link (in the group ~ ADD Women and Money)I found which had some good suggestions as to how to manage your finances, what to save and what to toss. Check it out!

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-home/cleaning-organizing/articlers.as...

Who is Dave Ramseys?

Jo Ellen


Hope said:

I am struggling with maintaining a routine, paying bills, recording what was spent, what is needed, etc.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica on November 21, 2009 at 11:26am

Since my husband and I are young and just starting out, we have some debt and are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck. Our debt is not due to frivolous spending -- 90% of what we owe comprises our mortgage and student loan debt. I'm pretty confident that we won't always be where we are financially, but it is still stressful nonetheless.

What has been working for us over the last two years or so is having one person in charge of our finances. That one person is me for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm better with math than my husband and because I make the most money by a landslide. Although I am our financial manger per se, both of us play an active role in budgeting and being aware of our bills, when they are due, what we are spending, etc. So, I keep up with the system we have created and act as the manager and my husband acts as my assistant in that he constantly reminds me about our budget, asks questions about it, and overall supports me and encourages me to maintain control over any financial messiness either of us might be in or get in.

OUR SYSTEM:
The way I've set our finances up is that each of us has our own personal checking accounts and any credit cards we had before we got married remained our own credit cards. We also have a joint checking account and we each contribute a similar percentage of our paychecks to that account every pay day. Contributing a similar quantity of money is unrealistic for us since my salary is 3 times more than my husband's.

Anyway, our joint account does not have a debit card attached to it. It is only used to pay shared mutual expenses and bills such as:

- the mortgage
- all of our home utilities
- the cable, internet, and house phone
- our shared family cell phone plan
- our shared credit card debt

Again, each of us has kept any personal credit cards we had before, but since we bought our house and got married we have opened a few cards together that are "shared" in order to pay for things such as buying new appliances for our first home we bought last year, paying for a portion of our wedding that was two months ago, etc.

Each of our personal checking accounts are used for paying our own personal debts and bills. For instance, my husband pays for the following out of his personal checking account:

- his monthly train pass for commuting to work every day
- his student loans
- his own personal credit cards (to which he owes minimal amounts to)
- his misc. spending for daily living and when he wants things like new clothes or something

I pay for the following out of my personal checking account:

- my car payment and car insurance
- my student loans
- my own personal credit cards (to which I owe minimal amounts to)
- the cost of feeding and taking care of our dog and our cat since they are really my pets :)
- my misc. spending for daily living and when I want things like new clothes or something

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In order to maintain the system set forth above, I maintain an excell file that has three spreadsheets in it, one for each of our joint and personal checking accounts. The spreadsheets act just like checkbook registries and I use them to budget out our spending from right now through about 3/4 months into the future. Each of us gets paid biweekly, so every two weeks I spend an hour or so paying the bills, updating our budget spreadsheets, and making adjustments as we go. This system seems to be working for us, but only because it is constantly worked on and adjusted as needed.

The only aspect missing seems to be us contributing to and building an emergency savings account. Although each of us have a 401K that we contribute to, we don't have any immediate savings. We are aware of this issue, but right now there is just nothing that can be done. Hopefully, within a few years, we will each be making more money and have more room for setting something like that up.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Ellen on November 21, 2009 at 3:40pm

JessicaLynn: Back before my illness, my husband & I had pretty much the same set-up; 3 accounts -- his, mine and the house account. We had purchased a duplex together before we had gotten married, so the house account was also supposed to be used for any maintenance on the rental portion as well because it was easier to keep track for income tax purposes. However, because my husband can blow through his money, he started using the house account for personal stuff. Him, being a truck driver, I was the main person who had to keep track of the in flow of income and the out flow of expenses, etc. I finally got tired of trying to maintain actually 4 checking accounts because I, also, had a home based business which needed a separate bank account. I, then, discovered Quickbooks/Quicken and was able to pared ourselves down to 2 checking accounts. I was thrilled with the program because instead of some elaborate Excel spreadsheet, I could use it to set-up a budget, plus categorize the expenses, etc. for tax purposes and at the end of the year I could print out a summary total of all income tax related stuff and pop the figures right into the correct tax forms. Once I learned to use Turbo Tax or Tax Cut, all I had to do was load the tax software (which if you had used it previous years, it would filling all your information from the year before, upload my Quicken registry and it would completely fill in my tax forms for me. The only changes I has to make was if I needed to add or subtract a dependent, if you had a baby or adopted. Plus the tax program would help me fill in whatever was on our W-2's, 1099's etc., because all W-2 are standard and they tell you exactly what box the information was in. Not hard at all. Because I don't like sending my information in online, I'd print out to copies; one for us and one to mail off to the IRS. Our taxes are more complicated than most because we still have our rental, a shit load of medical bills, depreciation on our house because of the rental in addition to my business equipment. However, the tax program knew which or all the forms needed to be printed out. It would then also transfer over any and all information to do our state income taxes. So, then they were done. I'd print out 2 copies and mail in their copies with our W-2's and any other documentation that needed to be included. Through my Quicken program, I also was able to maintain our credit card debits & credits, our flex-spending account, our 401 K, and our cash account. The only thing I use spreadsheets for is to keep track of the different places I'd get medical bills from. I was seeing so many specialists back then and we'd get a bill from different places, plus breaking down in-patient and out-patient procedures. Oh, and I used a spreadsheet for keeping track of mileage every time I had to drive for medical purposed because that is also a deduction you can take on your income tax if you end up with enough things to itemize and/or fill out a Schedule A, which is to see if we qualify for more than the standard deduction.

It is nice you have a system set-up that works for both of you. For which, I applaud you. And, thank-you for sharing. By no way am I an authority, even though I have been a bookkeeper and worked for H & R Block in the past. Different systems work for different people and unless we all share our success stories as well as our failures, none of us may find something that may make a worlds of difference in our lives. In my case, my husband as much as I have tried to get him to learn the difference between wants and needs he is not interested in learning the hands on, ins or outs of budgeting and/or how to even keep a check registry. I wouldn't mind doing all this if both him and I were on the same page budget-wise or if he could at least help keep track of his receipts. Wow! I have babbled on. I guess it is because I am sitting here alone on a Saturday and found out dear hubby is stuck waiting for a dispatch load out of Louisville KY. He was supposed to be home this week-end, but I guess not. I should probably go take the time to watch some TV or find myself a pile to sort.

Jo Ellen

JessicaLynn said:

Since my husband and I are young and just starting out, we have some debt and are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck.>>>
In order to maintain the system set forth above, I maintain an excell file that has three spreadsheets in it, one for each of our joint and personal checking accounts. The spreadsheets act just like checkbook registries and I use them to budget out our spending from right now through about 3/4 months into the future.

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