North Florida 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.
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.
Question for those that budget
Do you set aside X amount of dollars every month per bill or do you pay all bills and then split up the remaining?
Example, We set aside $400 for gas every month. We move money around when certain "accounts" get high. When gas gets above $1200 then I suggest moving that money into another "account". (We use Quicken, so it seems like it is set up in multiple accounts/groups.
Re: Question for those that budget
I don't budget as strictly as I should. But I got a base line average from the previous year and compare each month to that "average" to make sure we're coming in line or even to see if any adjustments need to be made to the assumed average, e.g. gas prices going up for the gas budget line.
I allocate using these averages for must-bills first and then to savings, fun money, etc. I try to reset everything if any line item in the budget starts getting "off" and reevaluate if discretionary items can be cut, saved on, etc. to make up for any increases I deem needed in the must-bills categories.
We just started really sticking to a budget last month, so we're in the "adjustments" stage. For example, last pay period I didn't use all my gas money. We wanted to do most everything in cash, but found that the cheapest gas near us is at Sams and we have to use a card. So I deposited my gas cash back into our account and used the card. Because we did it like that, we just left that money in our main checking account.
If we use a card for gas, it is our AmEx because we have a cash rewards card that is higher on gas and groceries. So we discussed possibly just making a payment on our card every pay period for the allotted gas amount, and whatever is left over is automatically going toward debt reduction on that card. Hopefully that makes sense.
We're still trying to figure a lot of this out, and I'm still getting used to Quicken (used to use MS Money), so we're not the well-oiled machine that I'd like us to be yet.
ETA an actual response to your question. For right now, we have a budget for our regular bills, gas money, debt payoff, and groceries. Whatever is left over stays in our checking account, and we use the debit card for random things that aren't budgeted for (running money, snacks while out, a doctor bill here and there, etc.).
"My 101 List - Updating asap, I swear!