Last week I had an epiphany. Actually a V8 smack up the side of the head moment.
Month after month, I have been frustrated that we dont stick to our monthly household budget as closely as we should. Every month, I make sure to tell the hub what is in the account, and ask that we shoot for staying at or below that number by the end of the month.
And every month, when all the debits are out of the account, we are in the red- leaving me with a week or two after he heads back to work, to live on mostly savings usually skimping by, frustrated that we missed the mark again.
So, I purchased a small white board for our family room. Now, I plan to start the month off with 'the number' or budget that we start with and every receipt will be deducted immediately to show a running balance. A very straightforward way to keep the budget top of mind.
And so far, it is working. The hub and I can see how much is left for the rest of the month at all times. It has triggered discussions about where to shave costs in order to have enough for the splurges.
Today was grocery day, and the budget was definitely a focus as we shopped...I definitely noticed that way fewer wants found their way into the cart. And as soon as we got home the board was updated.
So far so good. Why didnt I think of this a long time ago???
The magic of the white board
March 13th, 2017 at 01:51 am
March 13th, 2017 at 06:18 am 1489385933
March 13th, 2017 at 08:14 am 1489392854
March 13th, 2017 at 11:06 am 1489403210
March 13th, 2017 at 12:23 pm 1489407796
Of course, I'd be tracking all my spending for at least 15 years now and I don't consider it a nuisance. It just becomes a habit and most of the time it's easy to do since i just make sure I keep receipts. I don't keep a running balance though, and I don't have a budget. but by tracking my monthly spending, i have a general awareness of where the money goes and whether I should generally try to rein in spending or not.
March 13th, 2017 at 05:32 pm 1489426336
See if this might be a suitable tool for your needs.
March 13th, 2017 at 08:26 pm 1489436783
Sometimes I think simple solutions like this are the most useful. This reminds me that I did use to do this for a while, and apparently stopped at some point without particularly thinking about it. We have a fairly tight budget of maybe $100/month for misc., so for a while it would just jot down purchases on a piece of paper that I kept on our (shared) computer desk. Just an easy way to communicate, "Dude, I already spent $80 on unexpected purchase, so please don't spend more than $20 this month." I think my husband otherwise has a more difficult time understanding my more complicated accounting system. So it helps just to break it out into a very simple way. & sure, we could set up a google doc or something like that, but neither of us would remember to use it. In fact, I totally forgot that I Was even doing this. But it worked well for us for a while.
March 14th, 2017 at 02:28 am 1489458506
March 14th, 2017 at 11:30 am 1489491054
March 14th, 2017 at 09:19 pm 1489526399