North Dakota Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
XP: Budget ???
DH and I are really trying to get our expenses in order and work on putting together a budget. Do any of you ladies use a budget, if so would you mind sharing what you do.
TIA
Nicole and Michael~Las Vegas~May 31, 2008
Re: XP: Budget ???
Before my accident I save all of my month's paychecks and deposit them on the 25th. I would then immediately put 10% of my paycheck into my savings account. I would always pay bills on the first of the month even if they weren't due until later. Then I would know exactly what I had left over for food, shopping, and going out.
For me that really worked out great and I had a lot of savings before the accident because of this. And now as soon as I pay off my debt I'll start doing that again. I like knowing how much money I had for the month on the 1st and not really having to live paycheck to paycheck. I did run out of money before the end of the month a lot, but then I just wouldn't go out to eat or drive my car as much. I never once had to dip into savings back then.
My DH has a spreadsheet where he keeps track of every penny. But in a nutshell, we have fun money where we each get $200/mo. That is where we purchase clothes or other things that we want just for us. This also includes if we go out to lunch or dinner without the other person. Then, we have a savings goal for the year. We have to put at least $X/mo to reach that goal, so we keep our spending down to allow us to do that.
Otherwise, we do not say that we will only spend $X on groceries or going out to eat, we just keep our overall spending low enough and if for some reason we don't hit that $X for the month, then we know that we are spending too much money. That monthly amount allows left over every month to cover things like plane tickets.
This works good for us b/c we live so below our means and don't have kids yet. If one of us were to lose a job or something then we'd have to have a stricter budget.
The mister and I are a bit unconventional in this area. We each have our own seperate accounts and one joint account. We keep everything seperate - he pays the mortgage (he makes more money) and I pay all of the utilities/groceries. So I keep an excel spreadsheet for my own budget. It works for us - we never argue over money. I have 1 column for budgeted amount, 1 column for actual, 1 column for anything carried over from the previous month, 1 column for over/under. And then I have a category for everything (I like to break everything out so I can see where cuts can be made).
This is what I have for categories:
Water, Gas (for house), Electric, Sewer/Trash, Groceries, Gas (for car), Cell, Personal Loan, Comcast, Car Insurance, Student Loan, Prescriptions, Medical, Visa, Car Payment, Auto Upkeep (oil changes), Clothing, Fun Money, Gift Giving, Home Projects, Pet (food, groomer, vet visits, frontline), Haircut & Savings.
GL!