The Money Game

I'm not going to get into the specifics of our financial situation (obviously) but since one of my 2012 goals is to save more and pay down debt, I thought I'd share what our financial plan is for this year.

We haven't exactly been the most responsible financially and we are definitely paying for it. Its obviously not that dire of a situation, because people gave us money to buy a house a year ago and who would have done that if we were downing in debt? But overall, we have more petty debt than we are comfortable with. Its also coming to a point where we want to pay off the debt before we die of old age, so we're paying more than our minimum payments, therefore leaving us less money to have fun with.

I'll be honest with you, I am not a budget-er. I'm the type of person that pays my bills at the beginning of the month and then does whatever I want with the rest of the money. I somehow manage to completely forget month to month the amount of incidentals that inevitably come up. This situation leaves me scrambling more often than not. Its not a good feeling to know that your car needs a tune-up and you spent the money that should have been budgeted for it at Target on things you don't need.

I know I'm not the only one like this, and I have little to no willpower or self-control, so if you're thinking that you would never be able to stick to a budget, you're wrong. If I can do it, anyone can do it. This is not even mentioning the fact that I live with Mr. Spendy. ;)

Here's the secret. Create a budget that takes incidentals and "allowance" into account. If you have a set amount that you can afford to spend at Target each month and you know what it is in advance, you're less likely to go over, plus you're going to think twice before buying something on a whim. The awesome thing about budgeting for incidentals is that if you don't spend all the money you budgeted for that category one month, then that money can go into savings or the "fun" category next month.

Another secret that I learned from another blog is to create an estimated budget and an actual log. If you look at what you spend in each category every month you can add up all the totals and then divide the amount over the year. Basically, if you spend $1200 a year on your water bill, you put $100 as your budget for water each month, even though your bill in January is only $75, you know that you're probably going to have a $125 bill in July. If you put the "overage" into a savings account, you won't have to cut back on another category come July because you saved the money from your January budget to cover the extra cost.

Also, if we know we have a large bill that will come due at the end of the year, like our Property Owners Association bill, I divide the total amount by 12 and put that amount into a separate savings account each month. Then when the bill is due at the end of December, I just transfer it to my checking account and pay it without worrying about where the money will come from.

Here's what our budget categories look like:

Auto

Registration

Gas

Misc. Auto.

Loan

Credit Card

Christmas

Savings

POA

Dog

Entertainment

Clothing

Dining

Mortgage

Grocery

Household

Electric

Garbage

Cell Phone

Cable

Water

Insurance

You can see that I broke the categories down into sections that make sense to me. I basically grouped "like" things so I can keep track of everything a little easier.

In addition to the estimated and actual budget worksheets I keep a computerized account register for both of our checking accounts. I am not the type of person who is going to carry around an old school register and write everything down, so doing it on my computer works for me. As soon as I write a check or get home from the store, I type in the amount and calculate my account balance. This helps me more than checking my account balances online (though I do to update hubby's register because he always forgets to bring me receipts). I don't have to worry about remembering to take the checks into account that haven't cleared yet because on my register, the money is already taken out.

It sounds like a lot of work, but if you sit down every day for like 5 or 10 minutes, its done and it can really help you manage your family budget. So far, this is my preferred method, and I've tried basically everything!

What do you do to keep track of your finances? Do you use a program? Do you budget?

Extreme Couponing, Anyone?!?!

If you're anything like me, you can't stop watching this show. I look forward to Thursday mornings because I know that I have a new episode to watch from my DVR! I think its incredible the amount of product these coupon-ers take home for little to no money out of pocket. One of my peeves about the show, though, is that their hauls rarely are things that you would need on a day to day basis (100 packages of antacid, anyone?).

The guy they call "Mr. Coupon" does use some of his stockpile to make care packages for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I think is nice, and most of the coupon-ers donate to local food pantries and churches, so I guess the stuff they buy isn't going to waste, but it just seems silly to try and "beat" commercialism by paying little to nothing for things you don't even need. (Maybe its just me.)

So anyway, the other day when I mentioned how I was feeling like there was nothing blog-worthy going on in my life and I said that I wasn't going to bore you all with the details of our new budget, well, too bad! {insert evil laugh here}

No, I'm not really going to talk about our monthly household budget at length, but I will impress you all with my most recent trip to the grocery store and how coupons helped me stay within my budget.

One of the areas that we historically spend the most is on our grocery bill. We like fresh food and everyone knows that fresh foods aren't cheap. Its much cheaper to eat shelf-stable foods, but alas, that isn't always the healthiest option. I also enjoy trying new and interesting recipes and this tends to be where the bill creeps up and money gets thrown away. Sometimes I buy an ingredient specifically for one recipe and then we end up not really liking the recipe. Then that ingredient sits in our pantry (or fridge) forever until one of us I throw it out.

Moving right along. I had a few coupons from the mail and a few from the printouts that come with the receipt at the grocery store checkout. A few of the coupons were for items that we use, but weren't on the list for this trip, so I didn't use them. I also tend to buy store brand whenever its things that we can't tell the difference, like cheese, pasta, canned goods, etc. This saves us a bit because the store brand is usually cheaper than the name brand and our grocery store tends to give additional discounts on their own brand when you have their rewards card, which we have.

So Saturday I made my way to the grocery store, armed with my list and my coupons. I made myself promise to stick as close to the list as humanly possible. I knew it wouldn't be too hard this time because I've been feeling pretty nasty (sore throat, body aches, etc.) for several days and I really just wanted to get in and out in as little time as possible. (Note to all, if you want to spend less at the grocery store, go when you're sick and no food sounds good.)

I always make a dinner menu for the week and then create my list based off the menu. I also add in things that we like for breakfast and lunch like bread, milk, eggs, nutri-grain bars, deli meat, fruit, goldfish, Dr. Pepper (duh), etc. This trip was no different. I went into the store and I'm pretty sure that I only bought one thing that wasn't on the list and that is because D specifically requested it before I left.

At the end of the trip, I was $8 over my budget, but I had coupons and my store rewards card to scan still. My total savings was $6.50, so I was only $1.50 over my budget for the trip! Using coupons, estimating what my total would be (within $1.50, by the way) and staying on budget made me feel like the camera crew from Extreme Couponing should have been following me last weekend!

What do you do to save money? Are you a coupon clipper?