Slow the Spending
Yesterday I read a GREAT post from the Frugal Dad that got me to really thinking about finances. I have always done our finances on the computer and sometimes, things get omitted or I forget to write them down.
After reading his post yesterday on using a ledger, I think I am gonna go back to the “old school” way for a month and see what happens. It has been a very long time since I have written everything down that we spend and I know that by not doing that, we have been spending above our budget on certain things.
For instance:
My husband loves chocolate shakes from Sonic. During the month of June, they have BOGO shakes. We have been three times already this past week and he gets the large ($2.99). That is already $9.00! If we do that all month long, we will have spent right at $30 on ice cream. This is something that I have not written down and it is about $15 over our budget for this area.
So for the next month, I am committing to getting me a ledger and writing down every single dime we spend. I need to get our finances refocused and this seems to be the way to do so.
What about you? What do you use and how do you keep track of it all?
I found a program I have been using on the computer that has helped us out quite a bit. It is called Budget Advisor. What makes it different from other programs I have used (Microsoft Money, etc.) is that it does not hook up to my bank, and it simply asks me to keep track of what I spend vs. the budget itself. There are categories that help me to break down where the money is going, and did I stay in the budget.
In the past, the programs I have used hook up to my bank accounts and only caused me more confusion. This program keeps it easy to see where the money is going.
When it comes to hubby’s spending, I just smile and enjoy the shake he bought me. Then I make up for it with split pea soup for lunch while he’s at work. (That is, spending less in other areas so hubby doesn’t have to feel deprived as he’s the breadwinner anyway.)
We have a cash budget (kudos to Dave Ramsey) so overspending takes forethought. Impulse spending is pretty much eliminated. Currently rereading Total Money Makeover just to stay excited about it.
I’ve been using a ledger system for over a year now after my husband had to take a significant pay cut at work. Every penny had to be monitored. It worked so well for us, we actually put a couple thousand dollars into savings despite the pay cut, that I’ve continued tracking our spending that way even though his pay was reinstated. Some months I watch every category, and other months I’m more lax about it and watch the overall total spent, but it has been a huge help toward reaching our financial goals. Plus, I don’t have to wonder how those misc. charges on my husband’s debit card will affect the monthly budget because I am watching it regularly.
After using spending 10 years tracking every dime manually, then using umpteen dozen computer programs which were supposed to be easier (ha!), I finally just broke down and combined the two. Weird sounding, huh? I made an excel sheet that mirrored the way my husband and I thought about our finances. Weekly – paycheck to paycheck, baby. Each check is budgeted and a running tally is kept that goes about 6 months into the future. Every payday, we reconcile the online statement and adjust the budget. Now we can literally see what we’re doing to ourselves every time we overspend…
We do a weekly check in type thing.We just use a paper notebook.It works well for us to add everything up for the month and see where we can make cuts comfortably.I don’t like the computer versions that I’ve come across.They try to make it too much of a hassle.It doesn’t have to be that hard.IMO
I use a spreadsheet that I created. It started off as just a grocery monitoring spreadsheet, but now it’s morphed into all purchases. I haven’t linked up all the spreadsheets into the monthly or yearly summaries yet. Once it’s done it will be portable and I’ll be able to create a new one every year. I am planning on having a running summary of years created too. I am a bit of a techy so this works for me.