Journaling our money journey

[waverly]

I am trying to revamp our money.  I don't know that I have really gotten that far, but I thought I would post our wins and losses and compromises in a safe space. 

DH has compromised on hiring a tax attorney (found out some tax info/ problems that we didn't realize or know about). Hopefully the lawyer is good at responding to the IRS and working out a payment plan.

DH has compromised on hiring a CPA to do our taxes in the future. Hopefully (again) the extra set of eye will prevent problems like this, and honestly our finances are getting more complicated, so it is probably a good habit to be in for every year going forward.
Do you all have a CPA? 

DH does not want to compromise on his money software, however he did add it to my phone which is helpful. Unfortunately, the app does not include the budget so I have to do a print and put into a web based program for that (work around). I wanted it web based so I can access it from work, but it can't be downloaded on a work computer because I do not own the computer. So we are 50% there but closer than before- trying to be positive. At least I am more in the know and plugged in.
And he won't try any other software, so don't bother suggestion other ones.


We have vision, goals, and plan set up. I swear I saw a document that he had for a savings plan, but I couldn't find it, so I just need to edit and attach, and then I think we are good to go there.

ETA- we now have a lower deductible health insurance plan which should help a lot considering I just got the bill for the Ortho on our old plan to the tune of $300 since there is no specialists $60 copay or anything like that. It's just all straight to the deductible. 


I have created a bills calendar in Gmail, and we also have some of them in the money management softwares, that I think is helpful and he said it was helpful too.


Losses- he has rejected all of my operational type plans for spending money (i.e. envelope system etc), so I am on plan #5. Maybe he will go for this one since it's the smallest teensiest tiniest little baby step.

I am also doing a no-spend Nov by myself.  I do have target GC from before if I need to start holiday shopping, but otherwise no spending except regular bills and so I don't starve.  I can spend on food, but I chose to eat my lunch instead of going out today, and it feels good.  Only 26 more days to go. 

[2chatter]

No spend November sounds like craziness but a GREAT way to get me back to thriftier ways....

Good luck - we are most successful when we budget for eating out and budget for fun and stick to it.

[waverly]

Luckily we are not hosting Thanksgiving this year. We have hosted 9 out of the last 10 years. I may ease up after Thanksgiving for presents or start buying off the Target gift cards. I have my gift spreadsheets ready and Christmas budget and made room in my closet for gifts.

H finished his repayment worksheet and sent me all the financial files. Then we'll start saving for a bigger emergency fund. I am glad we are done with the planning process.

[mustardseed2007]

What software are you using? I got quicken and it's a pain b/c it's not web based. I have tried mint and didn't keep up with it. I don't think there is a magic software really. We've been doing a sweep of what's left over rather than an actual budget, which is working better than anything else, but not as well as I'd like.

My very short term goal is that I've been trying to save so we have our taxes already in the bank at the end of the year on top of our normal savings...and it is not working out quite right. We'll have some of it, but not all of it. It's ridiculous. I used to be so on top of this kind of thing and now I'm totally not.

[twinmomma]

I haven't found a good software yet either. We eventually went to a really detailed spreadsheet that we try to balance against each week or two. We set up most of our bills on autopay and give ourselves a "spending money" allowance each week that we don't track down to the dollar, which has made things a lot easier.

We need to find a new tax person too. We're going to get screwed this year, since our tax person totally f-ed up what we should be doing last year. I think my entire bonus and then some will likely just pay off our taxes this year.

[waverly]

H is married to MoneyDance which I think is similar to Quickbooks in that it is not really in the cloud.

I've been using Mint and trying to get him on my side, and he is not budging.

He was not using the budget part or bill reminder part in Money Dance, so he started using that. He also didn't realize they have an app. It's super basic though- the app. So hopefully that will help. I also am putting all the bills in google calendar to keep track of those random bills like plate renewals, and we have different excel spreadsheets too since he is an excel junkie. But what I am telling him all that tracking doesn't do anything if he isn't budgeting and sticking to it and only tracking after the fact.

So I think we will do most through Money Dance, and I'll just align the budgets to be the same numbers in Mint because I like some parts of Mint and the fact I can use it anywhere.

The taxes is frustrating and I have heard of tax professionals messing up too, so I don't know what the answer is. If they mess up can you go back to them with any kind of recourse?

[twinmomma]

waverly, Ours helped us file an amendment for free for last year. But it doesn't help us with the fact that we didn't claim the right stuff to have a good amount taken out of our checks for this year. We discovered that way too late for it to make a difference.

[waverly]

Yeah I know 3 or more people that have had tax issues, and some had preparers, but I don't know if they all do.

DH was saying oh yeah you can go back to them, but you have to pay, so good to know they amend for free.

[sandandsea]

It sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress! I do our taxes but I am a CPA. Most individuals can do their own with an online program like TaxSlayer. If you have investments or stock options it’s a little more complicated but still doable. Having a house and mortgage is still super easy to do but if you have a business or rental I’d hire someone.

Our budget is a massive excel sheet but when I track spending I use Mint.

I also set up calendar reminders for monthly bills but even more so I set up auto pay for as many as possible and always know we need at least $x in that checking account for monthly bills.

We’ve found the best way for us to save money is to pay ourselves first. We have an auto transfer set up to move $x after every paycheck. We actually do two auto transfers. One for property taxes and insurance, one for savings, and technically a third for savings of our annual raise.

Great job though! Starting is hard!

[mustardseed2007]

waverly, I'm guessing since you're trying a dave type system you have tried setting up a mad money fund for the both of you? My H was not on board with dave ramsey until he figured out that he'd have mad mony he could spend without asking me. It just wasn't skies the limit anymore...unfortunately I've gotten way lax and it's gone back to skies the limit.

[waverly]

We've been doing our taxes, but H made a bonehead mistake on them, so that I why I want to switch to a CPA. He is such a bonehead sometimes. It's like how do you have an MBA? Where is your brain?

I tried Dave, and H was not on board. Now with the tax stuff, I think we are going to be delayed. Mad money fund is a good idea. I kind of suggested it, but it was in with groceries and eating out, so maybe it wasn't Mad Money enough.

[mustardseed2007]

Nov 7, 2017 11:51:34 GMT -5 waverly said:

We've been doing our taxes, but H made a bonehead mistake on them, so that I why I want to switch to a CPA. He is such a bonehead sometimes. It's like how do you have an MBA? Where is your brain?

I tried Dave, and H was not on board. Now with the tax stuff, I think we are going to be delayed. Mad money fund is a good idea. I kind of suggested it, but it was in with groceries and eating out, so maybe it wasn't Mad Money enough.

yeah our mad money was 100% ours and was separate from restaurants and definitely separate from groceries. Groceries are zero fun.