April 2010 Weddings
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.
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.
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.
Do You Budget?
Do you girls have monthly budgets that you stick too? DH and I don't have a monthly budget and it seems like we might need to get one. I've used Mint before, but I'm terrible at keeping up with it. How do you figure out your budget and how do you stay on track? DH and I have been scrambling by the end of the month to make everything work and it's frustrating for both of us 
Re: Do You Budget?
DH has an excel spreadsheet that he tracks EVERYTHING coming in and out of the accounts. This helps us determine when we need to tighten our belts or not. We also keep a monthly cap to our credit cards at $500 (we only have two: a visa that we both can sign for and my american express).
Another thing that helps us stay on track is that we do almost all the shopping for the house (i.e., grocery shopping, pet store, Home Depot, etc) together. It helps us talk through items that we might not really need at the moment (the wants and not the needs).
We also limit how much we go out to eat and do things. We have one date night a week that we allow ourselves to go and do whatever. It is hard to do, but we have several goals in mind that we want to accomplish by the end of the year (i.e., start my business and get a new car for me). To do this, we have to watch where every penny goes.
Keep talking about things. It will help.
i don't know if we budget per say... but i'm in charge of ALL the bills - DH does mortgage/ins... works out fairly well as I make sure everything is paid on time and keep things like the electricity in check!
over the past few years i've kept spreadsheets on google docs with each month across the top and bills in the order they are due down the side. this way i keep track of what is paid as well as how much i've paid. i then averaged out the bills and am able to look back to last july and realized we doubled our electricity consumption in July thanks to the crazy heat!
I have color coded (did I mention I have ocd?) the bills as to which get paid my first pay check of the month, which are second, and which are both!
it helps a lot to be able to look back and compare... i'm sure you could create your own if you saved your bills or can access them online!
google docs is good too cuz DH can check in on any of the bills (but NOT EDIT!) anytime and i can update from anywhere.
good luck!
9 Glorious Months!
My Photography Blog!
I have a monthly budget in an Excel spreadsheet that we (supposedly) stick to. In addition to the fixed expenses (rent, cable, cell phone, etc.) I have money allocated toward groceries, entertainment (i.e., concerts/movies/baseball games), eating out, and then personal spending for me and DH. I came up with the amounts for each category by looking at what we spent in the past few months, and based on that figured out an amount that is not overspending but still gives us some flexibility. Every few days I look at our bank and credit accounts and allocate any deductions to the appropriate category to see what we have left for the month. This is why we tend to eat out more/shop more in the beginning of the month when we have a fresh set of funds.
I did a budget because I want us to put a certain amount in our savings each month, and without a budget we'd probably spend whatever's in our account. Plus, I've mentioned on this board before that DH has a habit of overdoing it with the ATM withdrawals so this has helped reign him in a little. I am a bit more of a control freak when it comes to finances than most people though, probably due to the fact that my parents declared bankruptcy twice when I was a kid and that was pretty traumatizing.
I have heard good things about Mint, but can't use it because I wasn't able to synch it up to my BofA accounts due to the bank's security features.
TTC #1 since 4/10, Dx: MFI IVF planned for April/May
I don't do anything right now but it is tempting to start so we can keep track of everything accurately and maybe save even more by cutting out unnecessary expenses.
Great question Amanda! I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the responses.
Shmel's Blog
The only budget we really have is each month we allow ourselves $400 each in our own accounts. That is what we use for going out with friends/shopping for personal stuff (clothes, etc) and sometimes if we go out together we will use these accounts. DH is really good at saving and I pretty much spend, but only in the summer because I go out more with friends while he is working.
Everything else comes out of our joint acct: gas, bills, gifts for family, family things we do, etc. We are able to put away a lot of money each month right now... So, once we move and our mortgage is more, we may have to budget our joint acct a little better!
Danielle
Tales From a Kitchen Misfit
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="D
Sure, I can dummy one up and email it to you... is your email address on your FB page?
TTC #1 since 4/10, Dx: MFI IVF planned for April/May
That would be awesome! You da best! Yeah my email is on my Facebook
Tales From a Kitchen Misfit
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="D
DH & I at the Light Festival
YGM!
Tales From a Kitchen Misfit
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="D
We don't have a thought out budget right now, but will at the end of the month when we move into our house and begin having a mortgage payment and other home expenses. Currently, we just have a spreadsheet that outlines our payments (amount and date of payment) and estimate expenses for gas, groceries, etc. to see how much flexibility we have and to stay on track. But, we have already begun to develop a budget which will keep us on track with our spending - we'll make this in Excel. Luckily for me, DH is an accountant, so he's actually excited about putting us on a budget.
I've found these budget spreadsheets helpful in the past: http://christianpf.com/10-free-household-budget-spreadsheets/
1. I made a list of all of our bills that had due dates.
2. (then I called to make sure that they would keep the due dates the same each month.)
3. I figured (the lowest) of what we make every 2 weeks
*kyle gets paid every week ... I get paid every other week
4. so I grouped kyles 2 paychecks with my one
For example:
Aug 7th and 14th paychecks
Aug 21st and 28th paychecks
5. then I looked at when our bills were due then put them in the right group.
6. The extra money went to credit cards what we use to pay for groceries and gas.
It makes it easy. We can look at our list of "bills by paycheck" and see which paycheck we will have extra so we can pay more on his car or put more in our savings. Im
1. I made a list of all of our bills that had due dates.
2. (then I called to make sure that they would keep the due dates the same each month.)
3. I figured (the lowest) of what we make every 2 weeks
*kyle gets paid every week ... I get paid every other week
4. so I grouped kyles 2 paychecks with my one
For example:
Aug 7th and 14th paychecks
Aug 21st and 28th paychecks
5. then I looked at when our bills were due then put them in the right group.
6. The extra money went to credit cards what we use to pay for groceries and gas.
It makes it easy. We can look at our list of "bills by paycheck" and see which paycheck we will have extra so we can pay more on his car or put more in our savings.
DH made our budget because excel is like crack for him, ha!
We keep enough in our personal accounts to pay our student loans + $500 spending money for whatever we want. Then a certain percentage for savings, and the rest stays in the joint account. All I know is there is a certain amount leftover after all the bills that is generally for going out, travel, Bruce, etc... but I couldn't tell you how that number was arrived at!
i tried to do this PIP but failed... so here is a link...
http://tinypic.com/r/j5kupu/4
9 Glorious Months!
My Photography Blog!