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AW: From the blog of Mrs. B... I'm so proud of myself!
This is from my blog, but I have to post this because I am just so freaking pleased with myself and because it's an effort to put it out there so that I stick to it...
Budgets and Savings and Groceries- OH MY!
I'll be the first to admit- I am HORRIBLE with money. I've run my account down to zero (or sometimes below) pretty much every week for the past year and a half. I spend what I have until it's gone and then I stress out about where money for bills is going to come from and what usually happens is I use an entire paycheck for bills and then have nothing for a whole week. And I've never been honest with myself about it. Instead, I have had this constant feeling of stress, guilt, and shame.
Being married has definitely changed that.
I never wanted to own a home, I never felt the need to save, I didn't really care about stability or safety nets.
That's all different now: For the first time in my life, I want to buy a house and not having money and savings in the bank is making me feel uneasy.
So I made a budget: I'm giving myself a cash allowance every week and once it's gone, it's gone. I'm holding myself accountable by keeping track and sharing my budget/spending with my husband.
This morning, while my dear husband was still sleeping, I got up and made a plan for the week. I planned out breakfast stuff, what I'd be bringing to work for lunch, and what I'd be making for dinner. I made a grocery list, went to the bank to retrieve my weekly allowance, and headed off to the grocery store to see if I could make it work. I stalked the aisles, filled my cart with mostly generic brand foods, all while adding up the total on my calculator.
I was able to buy everything I needed plus a couple extras for 10 bucks under budget!!! AND, that included multiples of stuff so that I won't have to buy it next week.
I
can't even begin to put into words how proud I feel right now. I'm not
freaking out for having spent over a hundred dollars at the grocery
store (like I would have before) and I feel less stressed knowing that
I am prepared for the week ahead. I have a feeling that this is also
going to help me stay on track with my weight watchers points too 
Best of all, I feel in control. I know where my money is going and I
have extra just in case.
Could it be, I'm growing up??? ;o)
~Mrs.B
So... Do you have a working budget? Has it changed with marriage? What are your budgeting/money saving tips?
The Benhams: Married May 1st, 2010!
Re: AW: From the blog of Mrs. B... I'm so proud of myself!
buying a house will definitely change all that.....i never run my account down to zero and always pay the bills first. matter of fact, most of the bills come out automiatically. that money is delegated from our paychecks to a specific account and then automatically drafted. so techinically we never see it and have learned to budget around it.
cool that you have a blog now....mine was neglected for a while but i am trying to keep it up to date now once a week.
Mrs. B - I am SO PROUD of you!! I am the exact same way with my money, but DH is SO financially responsible. If it weren't for him, we would never own the home we do, or take the trips we do. I am definitely a spend a holic. It has left me with a lot of guilt and shame, but surprisingly it was getting engaged that helped me change my ways. Budgeting for a wedding (and learning to use a spreadsheet) has helped me SO MUCH. I still have debt, but now it is debt that I am paying off, and still have some left over for savings. It is such a good feeling to know that we will have enough to cover our bills and our lifestyle without being extravagant and ending up with an overdrawn bank account.
I am also very proud of you for writing a plan for your groceries - that is something that I need to start doing (I'm a fast food junkie...it's an awful, and awfully expensive, habit!!)
Congrats to you, you are an inspiration
xo
Great job Ashleyanne!!!
We have a spreadsheet that HH created (he's an accountant) that we use that has a column for my expenses (car payment, student loans, car insurance, credit cards), for his expenses (mostly the same as mine) and then a central column for shared household expenses (mortgage, HOA dues, power, cable, groceries, etc). We have a joint checking account and personal checking accounts at the same bank, so we just transfer the money for shared expenses into our joint account and I pay the bills from that.
We're working hard to pay off our credit card debt. HH's parents gave us $5,000 as a wedding gift (huge surprise and a huge blessing) that we used to pay off the credit card we had put a lot of wedding and honeymoon things on...and we were just weighed down by it. Our new balance on that card is now $0. Our next obstacle is our livingroom furniture we just bought when we bought our house, and if we dedicate $250 every 2 weeks (each paycheck) we can pay it off before we have to pay interest on it. Then we will be credit card debt free (except me, I have a 2 with relatively low balances on that I pay on each paycheck).
I'm trying to get a second job (I only work 3 days a week) as a PRN (as needed) nurse at another hospital. Every paycheck I get from there would go into my savings account so that I can take extra time off when we have a baby and not go right back to work full time after I run out of time off at work.
I'm hoping these plans work out without too many kinks. I'm really looking forward to all of this!! Now if only UNC hospital will call me with an interview!!
You've heard what I've done, not what I've been through.
If you were in my shoes, you'd fall the first step."
Congratulations Mrs. B! You are doing a great job as you tackle this for what sounds like the first time.
My tips are as follows:
--Spend all of your income on paper, on purpose - every dollar - no more, no less. That includes anything you are saving for and any blow money you want to have available. If something changes, then pull $$ from one category and add it to the category you need the extra for that week or month.
--Pay with cash as much as you can. You feel it a lot more when you are handing over green as opposed to a piece of plastic. This goes for debit cards too. Try to steer clear of plastic as much as possible.
--The gas pump might be the one exception to that rule as using a debit card there will keep you out of the "convenience" store with all the items that will blow your weekly plan out of the water.
I have lots more, but I don't think you're looking for a book. Take baby steps and you will have that weekly plan in a tight grasp and that house will become a reality before you know it!
Way to go!!
Good job! I've always liked managing money. I use mint.com, it's a very helpful website! You enter in all of your bank accounts and your log-in information and it transfers in all of your balances and transaction records. Then you put in your budget, and so it will tell you if you overspend on shopping or groceries or whatever. You can make your own categories, like when we were planning the wedding I put everything in a wedding category so I knew how much I was spending on it.
I don't go by a strict budget, but these days we just pay our bills, which with the exception of our credit card which we pay off every month, are always the same, so I just try not to buy anything unnecessary and try to only spend 100 a week on groceries.
That's awesome!
I'm a binge budgeter. I'll do really well about tracking and planning for a while, and then all planning ceases (usually because I got busy at work, went on a trip, etc.). Right now I'm trying to get back on the wagon.
One thing that I do pretty well is track everything that I spend. I have an Excel spreadsheet set up that totals all of my categories for me (I have to enter purchases manually, of course). I am so tempted by Mint, but I cringe at the thought of giving one website all of my login credentials (Yeah, yeah, I've read all about how they have security out the wazoo. I'm paranoid.).
My biggest challenge this month is combining our finances and getting on top of all of HH's stuff. I'm going to be the one handling the day-to-day of our money, and just figuring out when all of his loans have to be paid and how much they all are and making the cash flow work is a job in and of itself. I'm hoping to establish some kind of normalcy in July. Back in December, we figured out the balances and interest rates on all of our loans and prioritized the payoff schedule. After this month, I'm hoping to get intentional about saving again and figure out the set amount that we're going to apply to the first loan in line for knock-out.
Haha Kelly that's totally understandable! Mint is a great tool, and I've been using it for years, since way before it was bought out by the quicken folks. I've never had a problem. I've had more issues with the banks themselves getting my info "compromised" (just happened with BoA).
I think it's a lot harder to track purchases if you use only cash, I like being able to look at all of my transactions at once
Wow this is awesome! I'm super proud of you!
DH and I do fine. We're not living paycheck to paycheck and we do own a home. I would like to start doing a little more budgeting just to make sure we're not spending more than we should in certain places. I am a per meal shopper as opposed to making one big grocery trip. We don't eat a lot of snack type stuff so we aren't big "grocery shoppers". I would like for us to start saving a bit more here and there as we are looking to start a family in the next year or so.
I'm feeling a bit inspired by this post. I may be doing some Excel Spreadsheeting tonight!!! ( I love Excel!)
You've heard what I've done, not what I've been through.
If you were in my shoes, you'd fall the first step."
Great job!!!!
We have a few different checking accounts. What I normally do is put our bills into Excel (like mortgage, car, insurance, gas/electric, etc). Then I transfer money from his account and my account into our joint account. I usually transfer 40% from his account and 60% from mine bc I make 60% of our household, and I don't think 50/50 is fair.
The only bill I pay out of my own account is my credit card (HH doesn't have any credit cards).
I TRY to grocery shop 1 time a week and plan it out. I do eat lunch at work everyday (I work at a community college so the cafeteria is so easy). I wish I was more disciplined to bring my own lunch.
I also would like to make a REAL budget to stick to.
Way to go!!!
As far as groceries go, we spend on average $250 a month (that includes all of our breakfasts, lunches, and all but one dinner a week). I think the best thing you can do is NOT go buy one week's worth of food at a time. If you're doing that you're buying everything at whatever price it's selling for at the time which means you could be paying full price for everything. I check the grocery ads every week and if something we eat is on sale (like pasta, pasta sauce, cereal, meat, frozen vegetables) for a really good price I go and stock up. As far as meat goes, I buy it at Costco and then put what we would use for one meal into freezer bags, so we can thaw one meal's worth at a time. There are other things like cheese and milk that we try to always get at Costco because it's a lot cheaper than the grocery store. That way we're always getting just about everything we eat at the cheapest price.
Thanks ladies!!!
Someone mentioned using cash except for maybe gas... That's what I'm doing! Such a great tip- helps to reinforce the value of a dollar. I'm taking out a cash allowance and my atm/debit card is at home
And just a follow up- there's still money in my account! woo hoo!!! lol
Oh, and jehawley: your message was especially sweet- THANK YOU!
The Benhams: Married May 1st, 2010!