I track spending and all other aspects of our finances in QuickBooks so I know where every penny goes.
But we don't follow a budget as in we have xx to spend in certain categories, and we stop spending when we hit the limit.
So any tracking/reporting is going on after the fact, not before.
ETA: Every so often there will be a poll on here, like "How much did you spend on maternity clothes?" or "How much do you really spend on food/booze?" or "How much do you spend on baby clothes?" I will go run the numbers, freak out, and promise myself that we are going to cut back.
No but we should. It's hard because our income is variable and lopsided but we should still try. Basically we have savings goals and we check periodically to make sure we are meeting those goals and that our cash reserves aren't going down too much. But we can get sloppy and I feel like that is not a responsible way to live. I would much rather be one of those people who are able to budget down to the dollar. Can't though because I never know in advance what DH's bonus will be like.
Not at all. We've tried so many things. I mean, I'm originally a MMer, so I've tried a lot. Mint, spreadsheets, I think the only thing I couldn't bring myself to do was cash envelopes. We mostly just look at spending if we find the credit card is more than usual, or if we have to dip into savings too much.
SS. DH handles the household finances and we have budgets for that but I don't have a budget for my personal stuff. I basically log into the back account and see what the balance is before deciding if I can buy something.
Post by cincodemayo on Aug 5, 2015 15:55:52 GMT -5
Not really, other than we have $ in spending cash per month which is entertainment, groceries, clothing, anything that's not bills. Sometimes we go over, sometimes we don't.
We track our spending against a budget in Mint and talk about it when we go over. But my food category and my general spending category are always over, so it seems like we're always talking about doing something about it without doing anything.
Not since we had kids. I used to have all sorts of time to track our money and save like crazy. Now money just flies out of our wallets. Primarily because I honestly just do not have the time to track our spending like I used to. I wish that I did because I know we could be much better with our money but oh well.
I've created endless budgets, but I'm really not financially minded, and I have the hardest time with things that are often one-time expenses. I can never make it make sense.
And I'm also terrible and tracking everything (this may explain the first part). I start, and then fall off the wagon. It's just more admin, and I never have time for admin stuff. Or cleaning.
I've tried Mint, YNAB, Excel. My brain just isn't wired that way. And DH and I are way too similar in our strengths and weaknesses to be of any use to each other
MMM, especially @vicmo, would be very unhappy to hear about our haphazard system. Basically, I look at what I spent on my credit card each month to figure out where our money is going aside from savings and fixed expenses like our mortgage, etc.
Not really. We probably should. I know there are places where we could cut back and save some money. I just haven't found a method that we can stick to.
SS - We have $X amount auto-transferred into savings/investments and then spend what's left. We're not so great about tracking specific categories regularly.
Not really. I have a general sense of where we spend our money, and when making the SAH vs working decision I ran numbers for what seemed like weeks, but we don't really budget. I do want to start getting serious about that though because I really, really want to buy a house next spring/summer. I generally feel like a MM failure on here though.
We track our spending against a budget in Mint and talk about it when we go over. But my food category and my general spending category are always over, so it seems like we're always talking about doing something about it without doing anything.
every month we have a conversation about our food and alcohol bill. It doesn't change. I thought if we cut back on eating out it would go down. But nope. I just spend more on groceries. Unless I stop buying grass fed beef, antibiotic free chicken, and primarily organic produce it's just not going to go down. And some things I buy due to allergies like coconut milk yogurt cost a fortune compared to regular yogurt but that's not going to change. So, it continues to run me more than some people's salary every month.
Yes. Two in daycare is super tight for us unless we count on bonuses, which we don't since there have been years where the "bonus" was just not being laid off.
I adjust our budget based on actual spending. So, no.
We do save what I consider to be a lot of money for big projects, but we often go over budget on eating out and clothing. We also tend to do house projects with spare money in the checking account. Having a 3rd kid will likely force us into real budgeting so we don't have to scale back our aggressive retirement savings.
Yes! We've always had some sort of budget tracking going on. But for about 6 months we've been using YNAB and follow it really closely. We don't make very much money at all relative to our COL (a decent amount under 100k combined) and we live in Cali. So we have to be super careful with our money.
I track spending and all other aspects of our finances in QuickBooks so I know where every penny goes.
But we don't follow a budget as in we have xx to spend in certain categories, and we stop spending when we hit the limit.
So any tracking/reporting is going on after the fact, not before.
ETA: Every so often there will be a poll on here, like "How much did you spend on maternity clothes?" or "How much do you really spend on food/booze?" or "How much do you spend on baby clothes?" I will go run the numbers, freak out, and promise myself that we are going to cut back.
This. I have an idea of what my monthly CC (discretionary spend) bill should be and try to stick but don't freak if it's different. Just pay attention to wear it is going.
I seriously know almost nothing about our financial situation. I know what we each make, I know roughly how much we have in savings and what our large expenses are, and that's about it.
Money really stresses me out and I can't handle it without getting super emotional. H tells me when we have a surplus or need to rein it in a bit and I know he tracks it closely, so I'm fine with it.
When I was single I had a spreadsheet I updated every month. It's harder to do now because h and I have separate accounts and I don't know his spending really. We have a joint too though before anyone gets wound up. Lol
I basically give us saving goals and try not to spend much in order to achieve them. We live well within our means so unless we have two in daycare at some point, it's working for us.