Let's back up here a little bit, shall we? I've mentioned before that I can be a bit fanatic when it comes to paying our bills. That has not changed one single bit. Actually, it might have gotten a bit worse over the past year because Stonewall does not have a job lined up once his leave is over (he's on leave until the end of November). I'm not in panic mode yet, but for the past year I've been trying to delay the panic mode for as long as possible by making sure we are as far ahead on our bills as possible, so come December our savings will keep us going for a few months.
While Stonewall was deployed I did a pretty decent job of saving money and not dipping into the savings. Looking back I know I could have done better, but I also could have done a lot worse, so I'm not beating myself up too bad. Now that Stonewall is home and spending money as well...we need a budget.
God knows I love my husband, no matter what his faults and one of his worst faults is spending money. He works hard for his money and he likes to spend it on more than just bills. I can't say I blame him for his way of thinking, but I've realized over the years just giving him unlimited access to our checking account is a straight shot to disaster. Well, technically it's a straight shot into our savings with the overdraft protection.
In the past we've always used account A for paying bills, groceries and emergency funds such as a broken water heater. Any leftover money at the end of the month goes into savings. Account B was our spending money. This account is linked to our savings, so an extra $20 of spending wouldn't cost us $45 in bank fees for going over our limit. For the most part we've always put more into our savings then what we would take out. Our savings would only go up a $100 or so every month because of our extra spending, but it was still there just in case.
Now with the "No Paycheck" zone looming ahead I'm getting fidgety about our savings. I've managed to save a couple months worth of bills while Stonewall was gone, but I'm worried it will slowly dwindle away now that he is home. I'm not going to blame it all on him as I tend to want to go out to eat more when he's home and I buy Lil' Mootz new clothes every other day. Either way, we CAN NOT spend our savings! Even just $20 here and $15 there in overdraft could be a car payment come December.
I've decided that we really need to create and stick to a "spending" budget, as I've got our bills and savings budget pretty under control. When we were buying a house two years ago our mortgage broker (that's the right term, I think) told us about a budget solution he learned from another couple. Every week we are going to take our "spending money" account and split it up into envelopes. Each of us will get one envelope for personal expenditures. We can spend this money on whatever we want, shoes, Wii games, a night out with the boys. However, once we run out of money in our envelopes, that's it for the week. On the other hand, if there is any money left over at the end of the week, that can be stashed away for a rainy day. We'll have a second envelope for eating out. We LOVE to eat out and we could easily go through an entire weeks pay at our favorite restaurants. A third envelope will be for gas. Finally, we'll have a fourth envelope for Lil' Mootz and Etc. This envelope is for things we should be buying together, such as clothes and toys for the boy and paint for when we redo the kitchen cabinets or mulch in the spring.
Soooo...that's the plan. I'll let you know in a few months how it's working for us. Keep your fingers crossed for us that we a)stick to the budget and b)Stonewall gets a job.
12 comments:
you know, the second you started talking about budgets the envelopes came to mind. we knew a couple that did the same exact thing and it worked out awesome for them! good luck on that!! i know how hard it can be to use the ol' will power! :)
I'm getting ready to re-bidget myself. Good luck to you!
I wish you tons and tons of luck! If Stonewall is anything like Vx, it will be very tough to pull off!
we used to do the envelopes and it always worked great! also, switch to cash from debit cards - i always laughed at jer when he would take cash out instead of using his debit card, but he said he spent less money that way. now i'm trying to do the same thing - and it's true, you do spend less. i hear you on the no job after leave ends bit - we have a long way to go before this deployment's over, but same deal for him when he gets back - no job. so, our main goal right now financially is paying off all "bad" debt and then socking away what we can - we'll see how that goes.
Sounds like a lot of envelopes to me. We have all of our money in two checking accounts that each pay 4% interest. There are several banks around here that do that.
I made an Excel spreadsheet for our budget. Its awesome. If you would like me to do one for you I could.
When my hubby got done with the Army he went back to work where he was before he went to the Army. He hates it and I hate that he hates it. But at least its a job. And his spending sounds a lot like your husbands.
Best of luck!
Good for you! Mint.com really helped me with pinpointing exactly where the "big ticket items" were, which in turn made our budget more realistic.
good luck! i'm horrible about this.
I hated doing the budget... but we went to a Dave Ramsey class, and it was amazing! It made the b-word, not so scary. You can check out his book "Total Money Makeover". A library should have it (but eventually you'll wnat to get your own, so you can highlight and dog-ear the heck out of it!)
Good Luck!
budgeting is hard. I know I'm there right now. I hope you're able to figure out the best plan for you. It sounds like you've got a good plan. Hope he finds something soon!
Ugh...bugdeting sucks big time. I'm in charge of paying all the bills (mostly cause Im a control freak) & it took me a while but I've got it down.
My husband loves to spend $ too, so we have decided to split whatever we have left after bills evenly between ourselves. This way we each get money to spend however we want. My husband also made me a budget program on Excel & its seriously helped me A LOT! Good luck :)
I think all men love to spend money on toys, and that it bothers all the women!
Good for you for being conscious of your need to budget and actually going and doing it. I need a budget myself and I'm not looking forward to it at all.
Hit me up for advice! I have a Masters in Personal Financial Planning, my specialization was in counseling (ie budgets).
Also, USAA does not charge overdraft fees and ya'll are eligible!
Seriously, I will help! No charge!
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