So I'm not great at managing money. I don't totally suck at it - I haven't put us in major credit card debt or anything. The only debt we have is our student loan debt from law school that we're trying to pay down as fast as possible. But I need advice on writing up and staying within a budget. I've written up several budgets but I never look at them again. Rob and I have already sat down together to plan our expenses and I'm really really committed to making it work this time. I did find this great budgeting site called Pear Budget and I love it. It's really simple which is great for me. I think it's really going to help me plan where our money will go each month.
So I'm asking you:
How do you stick to your budget? Do you do cash only? The envelope system? Excel spreadsheet? Do you review it all the time or once a month? Do you record all of your receipts somewhere? Do you have a category for random stuff that comes up during the month? How do you handle irregular expenses like doctor visits, birthday presents, impromptu road trips?
I've also noticed that I have a hard time staying within my grocery budget. How do you eat well and cheap? I've tried doing that turbo couponing where you combine the coupon with a sale plus some sort of promo where you get things dirt cheap but honestly, it took tons of planning and organizing and I soon realized that everything I could get on an awesome deal was total junk food like sugary cereal, cookies, granola bars and all kinds of processed stuff and let's be honest, if I want my family to eat empty calories I would rather make the goodies myself.
Any advice on budgeting you are willing to give me would be very much appreciated :)
So I'm asking you:
How do you stick to your budget? Do you do cash only? The envelope system? Excel spreadsheet? Do you review it all the time or once a month? Do you record all of your receipts somewhere? Do you have a category for random stuff that comes up during the month? How do you handle irregular expenses like doctor visits, birthday presents, impromptu road trips?
I've also noticed that I have a hard time staying within my grocery budget. How do you eat well and cheap? I've tried doing that turbo couponing where you combine the coupon with a sale plus some sort of promo where you get things dirt cheap but honestly, it took tons of planning and organizing and I soon realized that everything I could get on an awesome deal was total junk food like sugary cereal, cookies, granola bars and all kinds of processed stuff and let's be honest, if I want my family to eat empty calories I would rather make the goodies myself.
Any advice on budgeting you are willing to give me would be very much appreciated :)
3 comments:
For groceries, (and you might already do this), I plan all of my meals a month in advance. That way I only buy what is on my calendar. This also cuts down on bad snacks too because they're not on my list:). That may or may not help.
The best advice I can give is to take the time to learn all about budgeting. I recommend two books... 1) Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey & 2) America's Cheapest Family
We started out on paper, which my wife preferred but drove me nuts (too much writing, erasing, manual math), then I moved to Excel Spreadsheets, which was too confusing and nerdy for my wife to cope with, now we use inzolo.com which I have written as a happy medium. Yeah, I'm still a nerd either way :)
You already know that we do a monthly budget in excel, I have cash envelopes, I record all our spending in Microsoft Money, and there are months we have to pull money out of savings to make it. So let me know what you learn and how it works. Good luck!
Post a Comment