And just for good measure...your money organizing

friendlyturner · May 2011

Do you have a budget spreadsheet or software that you use for your home expenses? Do you log every transaction or just follow your online banking activity as you make purchases? What have you found works for you and doesn't work for you?

pag41989 · May 2011

I have my bills written down on a post it lol. I don't have very many so I suppose it works for me.

RachieK10 · May 2011

When we made our budget, DH did a spreadsheet with our individual expenses (loans, phone bill, gym membership, etc.) as well as our joint expenses. We figured out how much we each needed in our individual accounts + a little extra fun money, then determined how much we needed in joint and put the rest in savings. We left enough of a cushion in our joint account that we don't have to pay too much attention to what we're spending (understanding that we don't ever go nuts!). I check online banking once a week and just make sure we're on track, but it's not usually a problem. I also use auto-bill pay for nearly all of our bills so that (a) we don't forget to pay it and (b) I know exactly when they're going to be withdrawn from the account and can keep it in mind.

Lisa6255 · May 2011

DH pays most of our utility bills and his credit cards. I pay mine and use a spreadsheet which I have forecasted how much I should have with each paycheck deposit and bills being paid. Whenever I get an email saying my card is closed for the month or a bill is due I try to update the sheet as soon as I get the email or leave it in my inbox as a reminder. Whenever I have extra $ sitting in my checking I move it to savings, hopefully at least once a month. I always leave at least 100-200 as my cushion.

LIL Vero · May 2011

Do you have a budget spreadsheet or software that you use for your home expenses? I have all my bills logged into my Yahoo calendar. Also I have calculated how much we spend on gas and food, we leaving about $200.00 for "just in case". Monthly we save between $400- $800.

Do you log every transaction or just follow your online banking activity as you make purchases? Twice a week we both monitor our online banking. No, I don't log every transaction it would drive me to drinks... LOL I use to do that and seeing every $1 going out of our acct. made me sick

What have you found works for you and doesn't work for you? We have made a budget and we stick to it. We know monthly what we make together and what are bills sum up to.

TotallyLoCo · May 2011

I am the one that manages our money. For a while after we combined accounts I was tracking our spending in an Excel spreadsheet, mostly to reign in DH who seemed to be taking money out of the ATM every other day and didn't realize how much he was spending. I also used this spreadsheet to forecast forward all of our bills for the month, in order to make sure we had expected income to cover them and see what amount I could transfer to our savings.

At this point we have it pretty well down and our expenses are pretty consistent month over month so I haven't been tracking our spending as closely. I do check our account balance online every few days since we have a few variable costs (like our electric bill) on automatic payment. If for whatever reason we are running low on funds in a particular month, I will let DH know that we have to watch our spending for a couple weeks.

allioops414 · May 2011

Do you have a budget spreadsheet or software that you use for your home expenses? We made a spreadsheet of all expenses and how much we'd each contribute to our joint savings account.

Do you log every transaction or just follow your online banking activity as you make purchases? I do log every transaction and it drives me crazy if I cannot get my checkbook to balance TO THE PENNY. LOL it's very bad, it's the old accountant in me...it's still there, deep down!

What have you found works for you and doesn't work for you?

We kept our own savings and checking accounts to pay bills and for spending money but contribute to a joint savings account that we only withdraw from for big things (vacation, home repairs and expenses, anything that's mutually agreed upon - not just to pay bills and stuff). We put about $500 a month each into it. But we've been spending alot on the house, so it's not growing

We both have very different ways of managing our checking accounts, so it's best to leave them separate DH is not nearly as anal as I am about it haha

dasmel30 · May 2011

Do you have a budget spreadsheet or software that you use for your home expenses? Yeah. I found a spreadsheet online for Google docs and I enter everything in there. We also have an account at the Mint so I can keep track of things on there as well.

Do you log every transaction or just follow your online banking activity as you make purchases? YES! I log everything into the google spreadsheet and we have been putting an expense sheet on our fridge and write everything charged to my credit card on there. It forces you to look at it every day and become more aware of your spending.

What have you found works for you and doesn't work for you? Our journal on the fridge has really kept me in check. I found that I don't spend as much anymore on stuff we don't really need. Of course there are some months we go over because of certain circumstances (vet visits, remodeling, etc).

breannie · May 2011

This kind of runs in with the other organizing thing, but in the back of my planner I have the $$ section which lists all my bills and due dates month by month. It also has all of my pay days and DH's pay days and all the online bill pay passwords.

It keeps me really organized. Other than that, I just track my online banking on a daily basis to keep an eye on everything.

dls.1215 · May 2011

Do you have a budget spreadsheet or software that you use for your home expenses? We just started using Mint.com and have found it extremely helpful and eye opening as we never actually tracked how much was comingin vs. how much was going out. Even DH likes it cause he can look on his phone and see where we are at money wise at any time.
Do you log every transaction or just follow your online banking activity as you make purchases? Mint logs it for us, and I can go in and see the individual transactions or the overall picture depending on which you want.
What have you found works for you and doesn't work for you? We have found that the spreadsheet we had a hard time with because its not always convenient to pull it up or log everything. We also separated out a "bills" account and a "spending" account where all our auto payments come out of one account and our spending (grocery, gas, etc) money is in another account so that we won't spend money forgetting that an auto payment is coming out the next day.

dayzchic9 · May 2011

omg i'm super money ocd... i have numerous spread sheets but i do keep one for my checkbook where i record all transactions and and keep track of confirmation #'s and all. then i have my big bills spreadsheet where i have when they are due, about how much they are, then followed by each month and how much i actually paid. at the end there are monthly and yearly averages as well as how much i've paid down debt and how much i still owe. lol it's pretty extensive but i love math and numbers!

lol i cleaned it up a bit and attached incase anyone ones a template!

friendlyturner · May 2011

Currently I use a spreadsheet in Excel to calculate everything, but I'm personally not a fan of having to hop back and forth between the spreadsheet and our online banking statement to compare activity. I just recently exported my financial institution into my Quicken Home and Business software and, so far, everything is looking okay. I have to make some updates to it to ensure that all our bills are listed - but it looks hopeful!

Marick · May 2011

We used an excel spreadsheet - I think it's very important and helpful to know how much money is coming in and out and it definitely keeps us on track. I had a friend recommend mint.com, I may try it out as well

And just for good measure...your money organizing

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