OK Dave Ramsey people.....

[Peela]

I have just read Total Money Makeover and I am getting on the DR bandwagon.

 

I haven't convinced Dh yet. That will be interesting (he just got back this evening from a week away so I havent had a chance to talk to him about it yet). But I can at least work with my end of the finances. I have taken my credit card details off Paypal, Amazon and the Book Depository. I will use my debit card..which already is making me think twice about purchases. Since so many of our bills come directly off the credit card..it will be a while before we can give it up completely, but I want to move back to mainly cash. We used to do mainly cash, then we got sucked into the credit card.

 

I have written out our expenses...whew, no wonder we are feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, and like the ship is slowly sinking. Fortunately we have only a small amount of cc debt which I am paying off with savings this week. And we have our baby savings saved...next is 3-6 months of expenses. But we need to work on our budget, desperately, and we are going to need to work together, even though we tend to have separate income streams which we each have separate responsibilities for.

 

My question is....what are your resources for working to a budget.

Do you used the DR Gazelle program?

I just found out about YNAB and many people use it with DR and prefer it to Gazelle.

Do you use a simple system? An excel spreadsheet? A pen and paper and Notebook?

 

What works for you, so that you actually record and work with a budget to get a handle on your incomings and outgoings?

[CalicoKat]

My question is....what are your resources for working to a budget.

Excel spreadsheet. We've had a budget spreadsheet going for several years now. It's the same one but he recently reworked it so that the different accounts we use to save money for bills are reflected. In/Out account stuff is lumped together and shaded blue. The Household Expenses account is together and shaded blue. Yellow items are the things that are automatically deducted from his paycheck. Green items are the fixed expenses.

 

Do you used the DR Gazelle program?

He hasn't mentioned this yet.

 

 

my dh is reading this book and I'm ready to pull out my hair.

 

so far all his suggestions for "cutting back" fall in categories over which I'm the primary spender

 

-- groceries

-- my cell phone (we don't have a land line)

-- college fund cheerleader -- "Don't touch it!"

-- retirement fund cheerleader -- again, "Don't touch it!"

 

He wants to throw a stick of dynamite into the log jam here by a sizeable chunk of money from these areas into the payoff for the snowball thingy.

 

I suggested alternatively cashing out his Ameritrade account instead as the cash value would be the same as the savings he's suggested.

 

Nope, he doesn't want to loose that cash. :001_huh:

 

So what would DR say, use your emergency fund to pay off debt? Or "stick to the plan" as described in his book. FWIW we also have an emergency backup fund with Edward Jones but it's invested in funds and also my IRA.

Edited July 11, 2010 by CalicoKat

[CalicoKat]

My question is....what are your resources for working to a budget.

Excel spreadsheet. We've had a budget spreadsheet going for several years now. It's the same one but he recently reworked it so that the different accounts we use to save money for bills are reflected. In/Out account stuff is lumped together and shaded blue. The Household Expenses account is together and shaded blue. Yellow items are the things that are automatically deducted from his paycheck. Green items are the fixed expenses.

 

Do you used the DR Gazelle program?

He hasn't mentioned this yet.

 

 

my dh is reading this book and I'm ready to pull out my hair.

 

so far all his suggestions for "cutting back" fall in categories over which I'm the primary spender

 

-- groceries

-- my cell phone (we don't have a land line)

-- college fund cheerleader -- "Don't touch it!"

-- retirement fund cheerleader -- again, "Don't touch it!"

 

He wants to throw a stick of dynamite into the log jam here by a sizeable chunk of money from these areas into the payoff for the snowball thingy.

 

I suggested alternatively cashing out his Ameritrade account instead as the cash value would be the same as the savings he's suggested.

 

Nope, he doesn't want to loose that cash. :001_huh:

 

So what would DR say, use your emergency fund to pay off debt? Or "stick to the plan" as described in his book. FWIW we also have an emergency backup fund with Edward Jones but it's invested in funds and also my IRA.

I'm responsible for tracking expenses in the household account. I have a check register that I print off for the month. I write it all down, attach any receipts and voila I'm done. I know dh does the same with the In/Out account.

[Peela]

Hi CalicoKat- have you read the book yourself? Because without you both reading it, I cant see how you will be on the same page about where to get funds to pay the debt. Once you see the bigger picture, you can work together. (says me whose dh doesnt read books at all and who I havent even shared yet about DR).

And yes, one is meant to withdraw funds from investments and emergency funds beyond the $1000 basics to pay off the debts. First is $1000 baby emergency fund. Then the debt snowball. Then save the 3-6 months of expenses. Then invest.

 

So...bumping this because I am sure there are others here who must use some sort of budgeting system. I like the colored excel idea- I would have to learn how to use excel though.

[jenL]

I read the book, and we borrowed the audio version from our library which dh listened to (DR reads it) on his way to/from work. Hearing it always works better for him, plus he has less time to read than I do. Would an audio version work better for your dh, esp. with DR telling the story?

 

As for our budget method, dh is an accountant so his favorite thing in the whole world is an Excel spreadsheet. He creates them for nearly everything, so of course, he created one for our budget. We first started with him tracking the in/out flow of our money for 2-3 months to get it as accurate as possible, and from there, he created our categories. Each month, he changes the budget as needed (say the car insurance is due that month since ours runs quarterly), and that affects the amounts in my envelopes. Our static amounts are the utilities, car payment, and groceries. Everything else changes... restaurants, babysitting, non-food/household items, etc. We've cut our bills down drastically (ie. we moved to the very basic level of cable tv and cut our bill by $120) to open up money toward the debt snowball.

 

Although we've always had a "budget" per se, we still needed DR because we were lax with it. Reading DR helped us to get the perspective we needed to move in a better direction. It was our wake-up call. :) We've been debt-free from our cc's for 6 months now, and we'll be paying off the car by the end of the year.

Edited July 12, 2010 by jenL

[LauraGB]

My question is....what are your resources for working to a budget.

Do you used the DR Gazelle program?

I just found out about YNAB and many people use it with DR and prefer it to Gazelle.

Do you use a simple system? An excel spreadsheet? A pen and paper and Notebook?

 

What works for you, so that you actually record and work with a budget to get a handle on your incomings and outgoings?

 

It's been a while (years, actually) since I've read the book, but here is what I did:

First of all, I need to point out that we get paid monthly, rather than weekly or biweekly. I used a notebook. My entries were headed like this:

 

Housing

Mortgage -

Insurance -

 

Utilities

Electricity/Heat -

Water -

Phone/internet -

 

*Food/Cleaning Supplies -

 

Transportation

Car payment -

*Repairs -

 

*Clothes -

 

Medical/Heath

Insurance -

*Deductible/Med bills -

*Dentist -

*Vet -

 

Personal

Life Ins -

*Hair/skin -

*Various Kids Activities (I broke these down for each one) -

*Gifts -

*Spending/Allowance -

*Family activities (including going out to eat, movies, etc)

 

*Emergency -

 

Savings -

 

Old Bills - (this included at one time credit card stuff)

 

Every month I would fill out a new one. Each month was different except for the monthly reoccurring bills that always remained the same. Each month I would spend every single dime under these headings on paper. The ones with the stars are the ones that went into the envelopes and ideally built up over the months.

 

It works. It's a real pain, but it works. Your headings may be different than mine, but it is essentially the same idea.

[rwjx2khsmj]

DH and I went through Financial Peace University. Well worth the cost because there is no way dh would have read the book. Here are the forms we use for our budget. The key for us is naming every single dollar and agreeing on the name.

[coffeefreak]

 

My question is....what are your resources for working to a budget.

 

Quicken and Crown Financial Ministries. Crown has plenty of free worksheets to help you along, and Quicken is great in EVERY way. It was the best wedding present we received.

 

Do you used the DR Gazelle program?

 

I don't understand Peela. Do you mean do we follow his program to the letter?

 

I just found out about YNAB and many people use it with DR and prefer it to Gazelle.

 

Do you use a simple system? An excel spreadsheet? A pen and paper and Notebook?

 

We started off with pen and paper on the crown worksheets, and then we started working with Quicken to keep track and have a record on the computer.

 

What works for you, so that you actually record and work with a budget to get a handle on your incomings and outgoings?

 

Sigh, I don't know. I've tried using envelopes and the problem I have is, I can *see* my checkbook in my head. For instance, if I know we have $400 budgeted for groceries, I can see it in my head, and as I go to each store, I can see it being debited. I can't do the same thing with cash. I don't know why! If I work in cash, I actually spend MORE money on everything. You can also set up alerts on Quicken and it will tell you where you are in your spending and whether you've exceeded your budget. Mostly, what we do is we schedule transactions (including groceries, gas etc), and then we put it in a month in advance. So, for example, since it's July, August is already in the computer. That way, as things come up, I can see whether we can afford it or not and when we're going to be able to. So, It's July, and dd needs a haircut. I call the hairdresser and get her in for August, and then I put it in the registry for August. Now it's accounted for. It's not perfect and I'm sure there are plenty of people who will argue his envelope system is best, but it's what works for us.

 

HTH!

Blessings!

Dorinda

[Joanne]

Hi CalicoKat- have you read the book yourself? Because without you both reading it, I cant see how you will be on the same page about where to get funds to pay the debt. Once you see the bigger picture, you can work together. (says me whose dh doesnt read books at all and who I havent even shared yet about DR).

And yes, one is meant to withdraw funds from investments and emergency funds beyond the $1000 basics to pay off the debts. First is $1000 baby emergency fund. Then the debt snowball. Then save the 3-6 months of expenses. Then invest.

 

Actually, Dave would say to use liquid assets for which you don't take a "hit" to pay off debt, but he would rarely recommend cashing in IRA or other investment in which penalty and taxes *cost* you more than you save in debt interest. He would also say to stop funding retirement and college while in the baby step of paying off (non mortgage) debt.

 

Now, not being a DR card carrying groupie, I would (if I had it) keep 3-6 months of liquid EF assets and use the rest of my liquid assets to begin the debt snowball.

[Peela]

I read the book, and we borrowed the audio version from our library which dh listened to (DR reads it) on his way to/from work. Hearing it always works better for him, plus he has less time to read than I do. Would an audio version work better for your dh, esp. with DR telling the story?

 

As for our budget method, dh is an accountant so his favorite thing in the whole world is an Excel spreadsheet. He creates them for nearly everything, so of course, he created one for our budget. We first started with him tracking the in/out flow of our money for 2-3 months to get it as accurate as possible, and from there, he created our categories. Each month, he changes the budget as needed (say the car insurance is due that month since ours runs quarterly), and that affects the amounts in my envelopes. Our static amounts are the utilities, car payment, and groceries. Everything else changes... restaurants, babysitting, non-food/household items, etc. We've cut our bills down drastically (ie. we moved to the very basic level of cable tv and cut our bill by $120) to open up money toward the debt snowball.

 

 

Thanks, Jennifer.

I talked to dh briefly this morning. He was so relieved that I decided not to use a credit card anymore, he immediately said now he felt safe handing over all the money to me. Its been hard with us both doing our own areas and I didnt see how this would work but one step at a time. He expressed that he has always bene concerned about my cc useage (he barely uses it at all) and he is happy to support my new "thing", which is DR.

 

OK, so you use Excel plus envelopes. I think envelopes plus a few different bank accounts (for long term savings) is what will work for us.

 

 

It's been a while (years, actually) since I've read the book, but here is what I did:

First of all, I need to point out that we get paid monthly, rather than weekly or biweekly. I used a notebook. My entries were headed like this:

 

Housing

Mortgage -

Insurance -

 

Utilities

Electricity/Heat -

Water -

Phone/internet -

 

*Food/Cleaning Supplies -

 

Transportation

Car payment -

*Repairs -

 

*Clothes -

 

Medical/Heath

Insurance -

*Deductible/Med bills -

*Dentist -

*Vet -

 

Personal

Life Ins -

*Hair/skin -

*Various Kids Activities (I broke these down for each one) -

*Gifts -

*Spending/Allowance -

*Family activities (including going out to eat, movies, etc)

 

*Emergency -

 

Savings -

 

Old Bills - (this included at one time credit card stuff)

 

Every month I would fill out a new one. Each month was different except for the monthly reoccurring bills that always remained the same. Each month I would spend every single dime under these headings on paper. The ones with the stars are the ones that went into the envelopes and ideally built up over the months.

 

It works. It's a real pain, but it works. Your headings may be different than mine, but it is essentially the same idea.

 

Great, thanks Laura. It is similar to what i have already done...I am wondering if I am really going to be better off just using a notebook/printed worksheets myself, rather than a computer program.

 

DH and I went through Financial Peace University. Well worth the cost because there is no way dh would have read the book. Here are the forms we use for our budget. The key for us is naming every single dollar and agreeing on the name.

 

Thanks RWJ- I have been using those forms this weekend and its a good start.

 

 

 

Sigh, I don't know. I've tried using envelopes and the problem I have is, I can *see* my checkbook in my head. For instance, if I know we have $400 budgeted for groceries, I can see it in my head, and as I go to each store, I can see it being debited. I can't do the same thing with cash. I don't know why! If I work in cash, I actually spend MORE money on everything. You can also set up alerts on Quicken and it will tell you where you are in your spending and whether you've exceeded your budget. Mostly, what we do is we schedule transactions (including groceries, gas etc), and then we put it in a month in advance. So, for example, since it's July, August is already in the computer. That way, as things come up, I can see whether we can afford it or not and when we're going to be able to. So, It's July, and dd needs a haircut. I call the hairdresser and get her in for August, and then I put it in the registry for August. Now it's accounted for. It's not perfect and I'm sure there are plenty of people who will argue his envelope system is best, but it's what works for us.

 

HTH!

Blessings!

Dorinda

 

I will check out Quicken and Crown Financial, thanks Dorinda.

The YNAB program gets a good reputation for being better than those, but is going to cost me a bit. Hence the research first.

I know we are each quirky about what works best for us- thanks for sharing what works for you. I am pretty sure I will spend less with cash than anything else, but we will see.

The Gazelle program is when you sign up for the monthly access to DR style budgeting system online- it is called the Gazelle program. I dont like the idea of paying a monthyl fee to use a program, though.

 

 

 

Actually, Dave would say to use liquid assets for which you don't take a "hit" to pay off debt, but he would rarely recommend cashing in IRA or other investment in which penalty and taxes *cost* you more than you save in debt interest. He would also say to stop funding retirement and college while in the baby step of paying off (non mortgage) debt.

 

Now, not being a DR card carrying groupie, I would (if I had it) keep 3-6 months of liquid EF assets and use the rest of my liquid assets to begin the debt snowball.

 

Thanks Joanne- I am a newby to the system (and will soon tweak it I am sure) and what you are saying makes sense, and I am sure it is what we would naturally do under the circumstances too. Using the assets that cost the least to fund the debt snowball is obviously common sense. I guess the point is to make sure the debt snowball is actualyl going to happen and happening, rather than procrastinating..and from reading th stories, many people have done radical things including selling their house/cars etc to get out of crushing debt, and good on them.

 

Talking with dh this morning has made me realise that although I have felt we werent doing what everyone else does, which from my position looked like everyone else was doing better than us because we rent.....we also haven't gone into massive debt, or any at all really (apart from small cc debt which I am finishing with today by using savings.) Basically a mortgage would have stretched us more than we can afford (we have 2 investment properties though). I realise dh is a smart cookie never using debt and always using cash, except for our rental properties. I didn't appreciate it so much before (but he has also been bankrupt before after being a a millionaire, so I guess he should know something! "bout time I gave him some credit!) . The whole DR thing is really a wake up call for *me* and also gives me a sense of direction, which dh is agreeing with.

 

Anyone elee want to share their budgeting secrets?

Edited July 12, 2010 by Peela

[Rosie_0801]

Anyone else want to share their budgeting secrets?

 

Probably not useful, but anyway.

 

We both have Visa Debit cards, so we have the nice cc facility without actually using credit.

 

I take 2/3 of my income (half from dh, half from Centrelink) out each fortnight for my housekeeping. That covers groceries, the chiropractor and a bit of petty cash. The clothing budget falls into petty cash because we don't buy much, and what we do buy comes from op shops anyway, el cheapo :)

 

The other third sits in the bank. I use internet banking to pay the bills (except rent, dh pays that) out of that money, and otherwise try to keep it at about a grand. This means if a major bill sneaks up on me or the vacuum cleaner breaks down, I still have the money to pay it and some left over. If my balance is consistently sitting above a grand, it is counted as excess money which means homeschool supplies, Christmas shopping or *maybe* even a few books for me to congratulate myself on being so thrifty ;)

 

I resisted internet banking for ages, but I've found splitting my money between cash stuff and internet banking/ the credit feature for online shopping stuff, really handy. Being able to sit down and pay the bill as soon as it arrives saves the stress of remembering to get down to the post office. Or worse, paying over the phone! Having the thousand dollar buffer there means I don't get stressed over the inconsistent amounts.

 

Anyway, our kids are only little and we have no debts except HECS, so I guess we don't need a more refined system yet. We'll be working out over the next few months what we can afford to save, if any, and that will be taken out of dh's pay first. I think his budgeting is to immediately pay the rent, deposit housekeeping into my account and buy his train ticket. After that, the rest is coffee money and will be savings. I assume if he runs out of coffee money, he'll have to start eating breakfast at home.

 

Rosie

[Peela]

Thanks Rosie, sounds like a good system.

We have so much mess with rental properties, mortgages, rent, and several business running at once, that it all gets a bit complicated. And because we dont really keep track, it's easy...too easy...to spend what seems like excess cash but really isn't. Or shouldn't be.

Somehow as the years have gone by, things have got more complicated...I remember when they were much simpler!

I am going to need to write it ALL down for a while to see where the leaks are.

[Rosie_0801]

And because we dont really keep track, it's easy...too easy...to spend what seems like excess cash but really isn't.

 

It doesn't take too many times of running out of grocery money before you learn what you really think is worth running out of grocery money for :D

 

With the excess cash thing, I think it helps to define exactly what it is. Random excess money for no particular reason other than it being a good thing to save money needs to be put into a separate place. Ours goes to Rich's trust fund account. Excess money that is going somewhere specific, like your Amazon wishlist could be kept in an envelope if you deal better with cash in your hand. If you keep swiping cash out of it to spend on other stuff, you won't get to the amount you need and that gets annoying so you stop swiping it. If you do it electronically, then the amount is X amount above your buffer level. So for me, that usually means if I consistently have twelve hundred in the bank, then that's two hundred I can spend on my Christmas shopping list.

 

Now you said your finances were a mess. Could it be that certain expenditures need to be juggled around between you and dh to suit your spending styles? Dh pays the rent and then housekeeping to me so I can take care of the rest because he deals much better with having fixed amounts each month. He really needs a schema to follow that won't deviate. I deal much better with fluctuating bills. He has a rich boy mentality, so can't keep track of those details. I have a poor girl's money mentality, so I've been doing that forever and it doesn't take a lot of effort on my part. It's automatic. Dh likes to be able to have his responsibilities automatically deducted at the start of the month, and that makes me uncomfortable because it mucks up my, uh, intuition I guess it is. It works well for him though because of his personality and because all his expenses are the fixed amount expenses.

 

Anyway, I'm sure I'm yakking for no productive purpose now.

 

Rosie

Edited July 12, 2010 by Rosie_0801

[Peela]

Hi Rosie, its not really that our finances are a mess, its that they are messy. We are not in a hole, we are not in debt except for mortgages, but there are SO many things to consider all the time. Traditionally, dh has held his income and passes me/deposits the exact amount needed to pay bills online. I have my own income stream which covers homeschooling, general kid stuff, and personal stuff. So I dont have to ask him for money, which I didnt enjoy :) But I pay all the bills, and he handles large amounts of the money, and even though he is very intuitive...we are a little too out of touch with each other's income and outgoings to be doing it this way when we are at a point where incomings are barely covering outgoings. We need more accountability. I probably also need to sacrifice my own "blow" money- money I have traditionally had to spend on books etc- to the greater good at this stage. sniff sniff.

 

In reality, we dont HAVE *excess* cash, because it should all be going into "envelopes" or whatever to cover future upcoming bills- But it isnt. THats what needs to change, so we can really see where it needs to go, rather than it all floating around in our heads somewhere. Its not simple enough to have floating around in our heads. Too many variables, too many incomes from various sources, at different times of the month, and outgoings including business costs.

That's what I meant by messy.

We could however be 'in a mess' shortly if we dont do something now!

[Rosie_0801]

Hi Rosie, its not really that our finances are a mess, its that they are messy.

 

Uh, that's what I meant. I just didn't say it right, sorry.

 

Too many variables, too many incomes from various sources, at different times of the month,

 

Obviously our lives here are much less complicated, but I've solved that issue by putting my pay day the week after I actually do get paid. So dh gets paid at the start of the month and transfers my housekeeping to my account. I treat the 10th, give or take to allow for weekends or public holidays, as my pay day. Centrelink pays me the other half of my income that week, but I don't withdraw that until around the 24th, for the second fortnight of the month. As I explained earlier, only two thirds of my income is withdrawn as housekeeping, so the other third is in my account being buffer money before my take it out and put it in my purse payday. That means expenses that come out of my buffer money can come out at any old time. So housekeeping is paid into my purse fortnightly, but the stuff paid directly out of my account isn't tied to a pay day because of the buffer amount.

 

Even if my gas, electricity, phone and water bill all show up in the same week, they still don't add up to more than my thousand dollar buffer amount. And if something major like the RACV roadside assistance shows up on top of that unexpectedly (that one always catches me) when my buffer is running low, it won't cause financial problems because they are sent so far in advance of the due date, and my Centrelink money will be in my account ready for use a week before I pretend it is.

 

Make sense? Reading it over, it sounds too ridiculous to work, but it is :)

 

Rosie

[Peela]

Your post reminded me of something I read on some financial forums yesterday.

 

The hardest part of budgeting for many of us is actually being able to leave the money to sit there until its destined job is fulfilled. So if you want to save for a bill, you have to let the money sit there, adding to it, until the bill comes up.

 

For many of us, having money "just sitting there" is tricky. We live from pay check to paycheck so to speak and every cent just disappears.

 

But it seems you can do it by not accessing money right away.

Mm, I seem to remember you are a Capricorn? So is my husband. He can let it sit there too, to a certain extent. Jolly practical people.

[Skadi]

We use Mint and absolutely love it. There's even an app for it if you have a smart phone (Droid, iPhone, etc.) so you have your budget right at your fingertips. I get emails when we're over budget on something. It's safe and free to use.

[Peela]

We use Mint and absolutely love it. There's even an app for it if you have a smart phone (Droid, iPhone, etc.) so you have your budget right at your fingertips. I get emails when we're over budget on something. It's safe and free to use.

 

Thanks...looks great...after doing some research it seems it doesnt at this stage connect with Aussie institutions. I guess that will be aproblem with most programs which ocnnect with your bank accounts. Oh well.

[CalicoKat]

Hi CalicoKat- have you read the book yourself? Because without you both reading it, I cant see how you will be on the same page about where to get funds to pay the debt. Once you see the bigger picture, you can work together. (says me whose dh doesnt read books at all and who I havent even shared yet about DR).

And yes, one is meant to withdraw funds from investments and emergency funds beyond the $1000 basics to pay off the debts. First is $1000 baby emergency fund. Then the debt snowball. Then save the 3-6 months of expenses. Then invest.

 

So...bumping this because I am sure there are others here who must use some sort of budgeting system. I like the colored excel idea- I would have to learn how to use excel though.

 

No I haven't read the book yet. He hasn't put it down long enough for me to even read the dust jacket. :D I'm good with him pulling stuff from his Ameritrade fund and it would pay off 90% of the debt. I just think using that account would be the prudent first step. It's just that feeling that he's expecting these changes but I'm the one who's got to make them. So with his attitude about making huge spending cuts on the household accounts first and not wanting to use his precious Ameritrade account is frustrating. "Here Honey, you eat bread and water all month and save $$$$. But sorry, I can't use any of the $$$$$ in that account. It's for an emergency."

[WindblownIdeas]

We used Dave's cheap software product because it was in line with the teachings in the book. The initial budget took a lot of time. I don't think any product is going to eliminate the amount of time it takes to create a workable budget. It was so worth it. We just went through a ten month period of unemployment and because we had just a few months before eliminated all our debt and started growing the emergency fund it was not the devastating disaster it could have been. It is worth the effort to see it all the way through. Good luck, Shannon

[Shawn On the Border]

Our financial situation is pretty simple now, but several years ago we had a multi-unit rental property. I found it much easier to keep track of the finances with separate bank accounts. I tried not to take any of the rental money for personal expenses, so that I would have money for any rental expenses that came up. It also helps to evaluate how your investment properties are doing (if you have to keep adding personal money to the account).

[BlsdMama]

but I want to move back to mainly cash. We used to do mainly cash, then we got sucked into the credit card.

 

I have written out our expenses...whew, no wonder we are feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, and like the ship is slowly sinking.

 

My question is....what are your resources for working to a budget.

Do you used the DR Gazelle program?

I just found out about YNAB and many people use it with DR and prefer it to Gazelle.

Do you use a simple system? An excel spreadsheet? A pen and paper and Notebook?

 

What works for you, so that you actually record and work with a budget to get a handle on your incomings and outgoings?

 

What's the draw of the credit card? Is it simply because it's easy to slide vs. carrying cash *or* are you truly spending more so it enables you to spend worry free and it doesn't matter if you step out of budget?

 

Because the reasoning is totally different. If you're using a CC simply because it's easy and you don't have a tendency to overspend, get a debit card, balance your account daily and you're good. If the problem is that you like to overspend the budget and kick yourself later, then you really need to use cash.

 

The biggest problem for us is that we underbudgeted. In a hurry to knock down our snowball I was unrealistic towards our expenses - mainly food. With eight kids, I love DR, but I'm not really going to do rice & beans. Because we've found that when we make our budget too tight then we tend to have a weekend of pure splurging because we feel so straitjacketed by the budget, kwim?

 

What do we use? We use an Excel spreadsheet and I "forecast" for a few months out what I see as bills coming in/out of each paycheck. It helps because if you go to the hospital, then you know you have a bill up and coming even if it's not in your hand. I think forecasting helps us the most to know what we're going to have out of each check. Then we use MS Money to do our actual balancing and dividing into categories so we can see where we spend.

 

I'd love to go to all cash, I just don't think it's feasible. But we do use debit cards instead.

 

Frankly I think either listening to his program daily *or* going onto his forums often would be helpful to you. It tends to keep us in a mindset that is good vs sitting around thinking, "This just isn't reasonable."

 

:)

[Guest Cindie2dds]

Sigh, I don't know. I've tried using envelopes and the problem I have is, I can *see* my checkbook in my head. For instance, if I know we have $400 budgeted for groceries, I can see it in my head, and as I go to each store, I can see it being debited. I can't do the same thing with cash. I don't know why! If I work in cash, I actually spend MORE money on everything.

 

This was me too. Thanks for putting it into words for me, Dorinda. I use my checkbook the old fashioned way because it helps me keep track of my spending better. I wish I could use the envelope system; I even bought his cash sorter wallet in hopes of dealing with cash better. We don't use credit cards anymore and we are saving what we budgeted, so I guess that's the most important part.

[Jean in Newcastle]

The hardest part of budgeting for many of us is actually being able to leave the money to sit there until its destined job is fulfilled. So if you want to save for a bill, you have to let the money sit there, adding to it, until the bill comes up.

 

For many of us, having money "just sitting there" is tricky. We live from pay check to paycheck so to speak and every cent just disappears.

 

But it seems you can do it by not accessing money right away.

Mm, I seem to remember you are a Capricorn? So is my husband. He can let it sit there too, to a certain extent. Jolly practical people.

 

I solve this by "hiding" the money from myself. I use Quicken software. The money is in the bank but I make out a fake check on Quicken to "Emergency Fund" or "Auto bill"- that shows the money as gone (as far as my checking total goes) but the money is still there. Of course I still know it's there, but it helps me to see a lower total of what's available to use for needs and wants. Then when I need the money, I'll put an entry for "Income from Auto Bill Fund" (of course it's been there all along but now it is available on my Quicken ledger). Then I'll write the real check and note it. It's sort of picky and if you have too many categories I suppose it could get dicey but I've always only had 3 max and so it's been doable for me. If the amount is a larger one I (like for an actual emergency fund) I will actually transfer the money to another account (a savings account) that gets a bit of interest at least. If you use envelopes you could take the money out and transfer it to it's envelope and keep that money in a small lock box until it's needed.

[Colleen in NS]

I am wondering if I am really going to be better off just using a notebook/printed worksheets myself, rather than a computer program.

 

Anyone elee want to share their budgeting secrets?

 

And because we dont really keep track, it's easy...too easy...to spend what seems like excess cash but really isn't. Or shouldn't be.

 

Too many variables, too many incomes from various sources, at different times of the month, and outgoings including business costs.

 

For many of us, having money "just sitting there" is tricky. We live from pay check to paycheck so to speak and every cent just disappears.

 

I used paper and pencil for many years. Then I had a good spreadsheet thing going. Then our computer crashed. Then I fixed the spreadsheet thing. Repeat many times, change computers many times, add in a girl who doesn't like to fool around with programs to figure out how they work, and you have me who still has a spreadsheet thing happening, but it's not very efficient. We can't afford the latest and greatest in technology, though. Anyway, all that to say that my spread sheet is a computer version of my old paper version.

 

Five columns: the first one is the budget category name, the second is the current balances in each category, the third one is the outgo (checks, debit card, transfer to the MasterCard or VISA budget category, so the cc can be paid when it comes in), the fourth is income (where I put the monthly allotment in), and the fifth is the new balance. I programmed the cells at the end of each horizontal line like this: column 2 - column 3 + column 4 = column 5. You can easily do this on paper. When you are done your calculations, transfer the column 5 balances to column 2 on a new sheet.

 

Another thing I started when we had a crisis a few years ago: I scrimped everywhere, and saved up enough money for one month's expenses. Dh is self-employed, and we get income from various places (you know, all those Canadian gov't handouts, :lol:). So then I took that chunk of money, and spread it out among all the budget categories, for the following month's expenses. Then, the following month, I saved up ALL of our income to put towards the next month. It was psychological for me - it meant that we were set for a month, and didn't have to live week to week. So, currently, any income we receive in July will go towards August's expenses. We are paying for July's expenses with June's income. One of the gov't payments came on July 3 or something like that, but I *will not* use it for July's expenses. It was helpful to start this, because then I knew exactly what I was dealing with for the next month. I made sure there was money for all the bills for the upcoming month, then I had time to figure out how to stretch the little that was left, for groceries, instead of panicking each week.

 

During that crisis time, I cut out everything but absolute necessities. When things got easier, we added in a few extras like books and a bit of personal allowance for each of us each month. But for the most part, we try to live as low as possible, because dh is self-employed which means his income fluctuates wildly - the monthly thing that I started also enables us to allow excess income build up for the low times of income during the year, or for emergencies like car/house repairs.

 

I know you aren't in crisis, but this is a little glimpse into some things that have helped us.

[Peela]

Thanks everyone for your great ideas, I really appreciate it.

Colleen- I want to get one month ahead, too- we have a similar situation to you with self employment and erratic income. We can actually do it...but it will involve taking some money out of savings...and also some huge trust on dh's part, I think, to hand it over. I might have to earn that trust first :)

[Colleen in NS]

We can actually do it...but it will involve taking some money out of savings...and also some huge trust on dh's part, I think, to hand it over. I might have to earn that trust first :)

 

Maybe you could talk him into handing over just that one month's worth at the end of July for August's expenses, scatter it among your budget categories for August, and set about to earn his trust during August (or start earning trust now so he'll be ready..). It's so freeing to get ahead like that, so I can concentrate on stewarding wisely, and dh can concentrate on earning the next month's income. Go for it! I'll be interested to hear how things go.

[Rosie_0801]

Mm, I seem to remember you are a Capricorn? So is my husband. He can let it sit there too, to a certain extent. Jolly practical people.

 

 

:D Capricorns are generally considered boring, but we always have enough money for lunch. :D

 

Rosie

[Peela]

:D Capricorns are generally considered boring, but we always have enough money for lunch. :D

 

Rosie

 

Lol Rosie, Capricorns have a wicked sense of humour to make up for their rather practical natures.

And you must have a sense of my dh by now through various SCA things (actually I shoudl get him to friend you on Facebook)- he is anything but boring. :)

[Cricket]

Not specific to your question I guess but I have found this tool useful: Debt Reduction Calculator. It is motivating because it shows that the end is actual achievable and gives a timeline. We've paid off two credit cards so far and still slowly chipping away.