I desperately wish that either in high school or college that there was a practical life skills class! This class could teach us about insurance, retirement, taxes, and most of all, personal finances! You know, skills you need in the real world on a daily basis. Such as how to make a budget and to keep up with your bills!
When we got married 2 years ago I knew we immediately needed a budget. . So I made one. And I've changed it and reorganized it a dozen times since then. Our income is modest. My hubby is a full time student so he only works part time We needed, had to have, a budget. Budgets and bank accounts are waaayy overwhelming to me. I am not a numbers person and I know that I have completely over analyzed and over complicated this task. Even though we are definitely careful about what we spend and try to be responsible with our money, it still shocking to get our credit card bill each month and see that amount all in one place!
I decided a couple of weeks ago that my system needed an overhaul. My hubby buys a lot of things for his job on our credit card that he is reimbursed for. But when I sit down a few weeks later to look at our expenses I have no idea what was bought for his job and what we actually bought for ourselves. That was my first problem. I also was having problems remembering what I bought when I went to say, Wal-Mart, so I would know what category to take that money out of. I was also struggling with the best way to organize it on paper so that it easy to keep up with and that my husband could look at it and understand it as well! In addition, my income changes month to month because I am a Pre K teacher and I am hourly rather than salary. When there is break, I don't get paid. This complicates things and requires some additional planning.
For my solution of course I consulted my favorite website, Pinterest! I read a lot articles and blog posts on how to best organize and maintain your finances and merged a few ideas together to create what I hope will work for me. Dave Ramsey was of course mentioned in a lot of articles. While I think he has some really great ideas, the envelope system simply was not for us. We put all of our expenses on our ONE credit card and we pay it off each month. I haven't actually been through his course, but I would love to one day. I don't understand how you can pay off debt so fast!
My biggest inspirations came from
Fabulously Organized Home and
The Clutter Diary. I also read an interesting post about someone who has 7 different accounts! (Who could keep up with that!) Anyway, this lady had 2 different savings accounts - a regular savings account and a savings account where she put money in each month towards a specific goal, such as vacation, or new furniture. I really liked this idea and while I don't have it in place now, it is something I would like to do soon!
So lets start at the beginning.
1) I bought a cute black and white 5 pocket accordion file from the Dollar Section at Target to keep all of my materials together. I then labeled the inside with the following categories: Current Bills/Budget, Receipts, Past Bills/Budget. There are some left over spaces if I need them later.
2) Hubby and I decided that it would be best start saving all of our receipts and placing them in the file. While I saved most receipts already, I didn't save everything. I imagine this will take some adjusting! We also decided that my hubby needed to keep up with his job expenses because he has to turn those receipts in. He is just going to give them to me at the end of the month.
3) I created my own Monthly Budget Guide. I took this one from
Fabulously Organized Home and modified it to suit my needs.
As you can see, on page 1 I listed all of my monthly bills in order that they are due. I then left space for the amounts and to check off when I paid them and how I paid. I was actually already using this system from
The Clutter Diary. I love how easy it is to see what is due and to make sure I have not forgotten anything. For the automatic debits I just check online every few days to make sure it has cleared. I do set a reminder in my phone for the bills that are automatic debits, just in case! I receive online statements for all but one bill each month. I simply file these away in seperate folders on my Email. This really cuts down on paper work and helps me to be a little bit more green! :) Down at the bottom is a place for income and and our goals as far as what we would like to save and what we can spend.
On page 2 I put my monthly non-bill expenses. It is not reflected on this one, but I went back and added a blank row for when we do something out of the ordinary, such as vacation or a home project. After totaling our monthly income I subtracted our monthly bills from that amount. Some bills stay the same each month and for the ones that don't I have a pretty good idea of what they will be. After those amounts had been subtracted I decided what I felt was appropriate to go into savings and then divided the remaining money among the categories above.
What you will not see here is any sort of daily register. That seemed a little over kill as long I am checking our online statements and accounts regularly.
4) Now I will fill in the categories as the month progresses and hope this works much better for me! I plan on cleaning out receipts at the end of the month.
Whew, this was a long post! I am so grateful to others out there in the blogger world for their help! What did we do before Pinterest?!
Check back later for another post - hope to have some pictures up from my trip to the NC coast last week!
