September 2008 Weddings
abvernon
member
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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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.
s/o debt free
DH and I are really, really, really determined getting a house or at least getting close to a 20% DP this year. Last year, we just put in $$ when we could but I want to be consistent.
So, how do we get started? Should we do an excel spreadsheet or try a program like Quicken?
This one bedroom apartment is getting to us and with the new (and noisy) neighbors, there is only so much we can handle!
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Re: s/o debt free
Like I told Christy, I'd recommend making a spread sheet in whatever program your comfortable in (I use Excel). Make a list of all your monthly expenses, add them up and subtract from your net income. Give yourself a little buffer and the rest should be going to savings. Obviously some months you have more expenses (like around Christmas time when you're buying presents) and you will want to account for that and not transfer as much. But this will at least let you know the ballpark figure you should reach for.
I get paid monthly but DH gets paid twice a month. Most of our bills are due at the beginning or middle of month. So once he gets paid again around the middle of the month I can estimate the amount I can transfer, accounting for the one bill at the end of the month and things like food.
That is a great start. DH will have to do it from his checking acct as he does not have automatic deduct or direct deposit from his employer.
I guess the next step is to figure out how much I should put in.
Excellent. Thank you Holly. DH and I will get started on this tonight!
Now that I'm supporting me and Brody on a single income, I'm determined to cut corners. The first step I'm going to take is to scrutinize my spending. This means that for the entire month of January I'm saving all receipts and documenting them in an Excel spreadsheet. Sure, it's easy enough to see how much you're spending on mortgage/rent, utilities, cable, phone, etc. but I really want to see where else my money is going.
For example, I spent $123 at our local grocery store today. I feel like that's a TON, but when I was looking at my purchase I see that $23 of that was dog and cat food. I think it'll really help me to see where I'm making unnecessary purchases (not that cat/dog food is unnecessary!) but so I can adjust my spending. Does that make any sense?
I've heard good things about mint.com for tracking spending as well.
I also like Christina's idea about having it automatically taken out of paychecks/accounts and transferred into savings. I have medical/dental/vision insurance plus "bought" vacation time and flexible-spending account funds taken out of my check and I don't even notice it's gone!