Monday, September 7, 2009
Budget Tip #1
I am enjoying my laborish day :). Even though I am at work and not laying at the pool like most of you, but I am making the best of it! For my mid morning snack, I enjoyed a Sandwich Thin with PB and a juicy plum.
I love cutting my sandwiches up, takes me longer to eat.
For lunch I had “rabbit food” as Hubby likes to call it.
One kiwi, sweet peppers I got at Costco, Food Should Taste Good Chips, hummus( look in the left corner) and a veggie wrap!
My wrap has HAIR!!!
Today I wanted to share a budgeting tip I have found this weekend. I found Mint.com, which also has an application for the iPhone. A free and wonderful software that helps you manage your money!!! They have outlined: Budget Planning, Creating A Budget, and Tracking A Budget. To make it even easier, they have included a section of Tools You Can Use. Why have we never used this?!
Hubby and also use a wonderful excel spread sheet that Hubby has created and it has been a great tool!
My account shows 0 because we do not budget my kickboxing money I make every month, that's my “free” money(what I bought my running shoes with)! I am going to make it my GOAL this month to be under budget for the first time since the Keep it Simple Challenge!!!
Question: Are you a saver or a spender??!
Back to LABORING!
21 comments:
Proud to say saver now, thanks to my boyfriend. Now, we live together and I've taken up his way of saving. That's what our spreadsheet looks like too!
I guess the popular personal finance program out there is Quickbooks. I found it to be too much fluff, dings and bells than what I needed. Excel was sufficient to maintain on a monthly basis or when I needed to regroup and budget my simple life.
In Excel, I had all my creditors as my column headings (downwards) and across the top headings were the months. Each cell would of course, have the amounts paid.
At the bottom after the totals would be the total salary (take home) amount and subtract that with the total debts - which leaves you with a very very small number. Ha ha ha ha! Just as long as it's not a negative. I'm okay! Ha ha ha ha!
In our premarital counseling session we learned how to budget well...live off of 80% of your income, save 10% and give 10% to the Lord. We have been blessed by this way of managing our finances, even when hubby was unemployed for 9 months last year. I truly believe if we are faithful stewards of what He gives us that He will always take care of our needs!
we save every month and budget our spending pretty much down to the dime.
i think we have a pretty good system, but I can't wait until he's done with school and we have a little more wiggle room and MORE to put back into savings.
That website looks great! I just moved in to my dorm and st up a bank account and so far I've been using a word doc to track expenses but that looks soooo much better
i am 100% a saver. i'm actually going to go to some investment club meetings at my school to start changing the way i think about money.
glad you have a positive attitude about working today --not sure if i would be able to say the same :)
I love mint.com. I find it so user-friendly! And I like how it provides a variety of charts to visually show me where my money's going. I have a feeling my grocery money is disproportionately larger than most's...
I love Mint.com! I think it's a great personal finance resource!
By the way, I love your positive outlook, particularly on a day like today when everyone else is off work and you aren't. I wish I had more of that!
That is a really good tool! I'm both a saver and a spender-I save a lot, and I spend a lot- but only on things I know I NEED to have! So I guess you can say I'm pretty good with money =)
What colorful eats! Yum!
xo
K
I am sort of a saver and a spender. I save money for the things that count if that makes sense.
i am a little of both. I save but yet i spend too! its rough. hahah but i love that idea of this website and i'm going to def check it out! thanks bobbi :)
Oh thank you for telling us about it! I'll be looking into that and the application as well. I'm both - I spend a lot on groceries, but I'm also pretty frugal and don't eat out a lot.
I have a budget too. However, I am still figuring out how to make the most of it and not sweat the small (or large unexpected) things. :)
Sorry you had to work today, that's a real bummer!
I would like to think that I am a saver but I married an accountant, so he takes care of this aspect of our lives and I couldn't be happier. I trust him entirely and I know that our finanaces are in good hands.
I would be a mess if this was my job.
Hope you had a good day, despite having to go to the office.
both d and I are savers. Then we do things like take a trip or something and it's great because we can just enjoy the trip without feeling like oh no we have no money in the bank
I am trying to do both at the same time which doesn't work too well. lol But I really do try to save as much money as I can when I am in the position to. But sometimes bills need to paid and food needs to be purchased. I love your excel budget sheet.
Do you guys leave the A/C on for Bosco all summer? The A/C is so major during these hot temps but can't risk the high electric bills. So turn it on for 5-6 hours at 78F on hot days. Use a commercial strength 18" fan all the time though. Also have ceiling fan and small desk fan to pacify me as well. This helped keep my electric bill down last month.
I use mint too and think it's a great tool. My main issue is staying on top of categorizing items that end up in the wrong area. Simpledollar.com is also a good resource for budgeting tips. My main goal this month is to spend less on groceries by planning our meals more effectively.
with are free F.N.A THERE NO GUESSING LOVE DAD....
If you enjoy using Excel, you may want to consider a customized Excel file that includes registers (similar to a checkbook to track your accounts), the ability to create your own categories, split transactions, create a monthly budget and view reports such as budget vs actual in a simple dashboard layout. See:
http://www.georgesbudget.com/
I am a saver. I have been using the excel spreadsheet to do the household finances and spending tracking. It lets me know where my money has gone and I can set up money saving measures such as reducing costs of Internet&telephone bills. I do the gardening on my own.
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