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Natalia
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| Posted: Oct 30 2005 at 4:23pm | IP Logged
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at your house?
I have to admit that up to know I have not taken any interest on our finances. Lately I have felt convicted about it. I know that I have some growing up to do regarding this area for my sake and the sake of my dh.
So, who does the finances at your house? where should I start to learn more about handling personal finances?
Do you budget? How do you keep up with expenses? We have always have trouble keeping to a budget. We use Quicken but Ihave to say that to me money handled this way just don't seem real. I think that up to now we haven't had common financial goals - he talks about saving for retirement and I want money to spend NOW. I am not a big spender but I feel that we lack direction and goals. Consequently, I feel that we make unwise decisions about purchases or make impulse decisions. I would love to hear how you all handle this aspect of your life.
Thanks,
Natalia
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: Oct 30 2005 at 7:24pm | IP Logged
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I handle the finances for our family. My husband has no real interest in doing it. Sometimes he gets frustrated with what we can or can't afford and we'll occasionally set up a weekly review to do together so I'm not the one holding the reigns. But when push comes to shove he just doesn't sit down and look at it. As time has passed he's recognized that it's not his thing and has just let me handle it.
We belong to a faith study group with several families in our parish and we studied finances from a Catholic faith perspective. We used The Catholic Answers Guide to Family Finances. It was really good. It helps you to look at the spiritual underpinnings to your choices in spending the money you've been entrusted with.
We do budget, but in truth a month rarely goes by when we stay in budget. This is a frustration for me. It really comes down to a pattern of sin. I can get stressed out about finances and buckle down for a while and then feel like I NEED some thing, essentially to fill a hole God should be filling, and boom the finances get out of whack again.
I think even so, until I can conquer my inability to stick to the budget, having it and being aware of it helps. If we didn't have the budget we'd have sunk financially a long time ago. If our budget for groceries is $110/week and I spend $120 it will throw us off budget, but I'm not likely to spend $200 knowing that my budget is $110. If that makes any sense.
I think that the book mentioned above will help you guys connect on your financial goals and see what's really important.
HTH
God Bless!
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cctabb
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| Posted: Oct 30 2005 at 9:57pm | IP Logged
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I, too, do the finances in our household. I tried to let DH do it for a year - didn't last 8 months then I had to step in again and get us back on track. 
If I didn't have Quicken to balance the checking account I don't know what I'd do. I also have to do the online banking thing to keep track of things.
We have a budget and will stick to it about 2/3 of the time.
With 4 moves in what is now 6 years, we don't have a lot of disposable income, so we are used to not having any big extras. We do try to buy one thing for each of us, dd included, about once a month so we don't feel deprived. That helps a lot! Nothing huge, just some little $20-30 thing.
Most of my financial knowledge comes from MSN's money section. I enjoy reading articles there and they have some good advice.
Charlene
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Natalia
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| Posted: Oct 31 2005 at 6:51am | IP Logged
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Thanks Richelle and Charlene. Re your budgets do you have a lot of categories or few broad categories. My dh used to have very defined categories and I found it difficult to keep up with, mainly because when I'd go to, lets say Wal-mart, there would be items in several categories. It was a pain to have to separate those. I hated it and it was time consuming. Now we have fewer broader categories and I like it better but it almost seems that I would need subcategories to keep a better handle on where money is going 
Looking foward to what others have to say,
Natalia
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Bridget
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| Posted: Oct 31 2005 at 7:42am | IP Logged
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David Bruggeman posted a really simple way to budget on his blog recently.bruggie tales
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God Bless,
Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
Our Magnum Opus
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Natalia
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| Posted: Nov 01 2005 at 8:11am | IP Logged
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Richelle,
Thanks for the recommendation. I ordered the book.
Bridgette,
That does look like a simple way to do a budget. Thanks.
Natalia
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Cheryl
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| Posted: Nov 01 2005 at 9:18am | IP Logged
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Natalia,
I always have to enter those Walmart receipts because my husband can never figure out what I bought. We use Quicken too. We started out (before kids) doing everything together. We did it once a week and called it "Action Night." We were pretty obsessive. We have many catergories. One of us would read the receipts and write out the checks and the other would enter them on the computer. Then one year when he was extremely busy I did everything myself. Then the next year he did it himself. We always create the budget together. We do it at the end of August, budgeting for Sept-Aug. We have categories called Spending:Cheryl and Spending:Bobby with the same amount budgeted for each for the whole year. We can buy whatever we want until we reach the budgeted amount. We check where we're at throughout the year and really try not to go over.
I have to say that since I've started homeschooling in sept '04 I have let my husband do most of the work. I enter my own receipts and sometimes do the bills with him, but it's not a regular thing. It's hard to make the time to do it. When the kids go to bed I want to go online or lie on the couch with a book.
Retirement money is very important to my husband. We were saving for it with IRA's and 401K types but then my dh bought property and built a building for his office and to rent. So we stopped and the property and his business are hopefully our retirement money. Things have gotten a lot more complicated financially and your post is a good reminder for me to get more involved again. I personally think it's important for both spouses to have some idea what's going on in case one passes away unexpectedly.
Sorry to end on a depressing note, but I need to get my kids a snack.
__________________
Cheryl
Wife to Bob ('97)
Mom to Matthew 13, Joseph 11, Sarah 10, Rachel 6, Hannah almost 4 and Mary 1
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Martha
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I do it in our house and have for years.
My dh hates it and says it's hard enough working to bring it home without trying to figure out how I should spend it.  He really doesn't care about the money at all. He just likes knowing that he's able to provide for us what we need and a few of what we want.
ETA: How I do it.
I made to excel spreadsheets.
1 is our budget for the breakdown in catagories of every dollar for each payday. (A dollar not budgeted is usually a doaller wasted around here!) It also keeps a running tally of money saved in whatever catagories (if any  ) and allows me to keep track of each catagories expenses.
The 2nd is very much like the paper version of a checkbook register and keeps the actual listing of income/outcome entries as they are made.
I only need to refer to these on paydays which is twice a month as all our spending is done that weekend to last until the next pay period.
Oh and the hardest part is sticking to the no spending out of budget rule. (Esp. this time of year  ) But I can tell you very honestly, that you will see God helping you if you do.
My dh, normally a very quiet and non-confrontation fellow, has become an awesome bargainer! Everywhere! Grocery store, Walmart, car, carpet, hot water heater - you name it!
And we have learned that if we wait on the things society says is a need, but we know we can suffer without until the money comes together (which really means it is a want) we actually end up much better off for having waited, both in what we end up paying for and in being able to afford it better.
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Martha
mama to 7 boys & 4 girls
Yes, they're all ours!
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Willa
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Thanks for opening the thread, Natalia.
I'm in your shoes -- don't pay much attention to the finances and am starting to feel convicted that I should be doing so. DH has the Catholic family finance book in his office and I'm going to dig it out. I really liked Dave's blog about how his parents did finances. It seems simple and really workable.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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dhbrug
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I have helped many families with their finances. The key to controlling your spending is to first record everything. You can't make decisions about spending patterns if you don't know what they are. And you should BOTH get involved.
Once you have about 3 months of history, recording everything into identifiable chunks, you can then see where the money is going. You can then make a "budget" based on reality rather than hopes and dreams.
One of my friends who was always fighting with his wife over money commented after he had been recording and tracking their spending regularly, "You know this is the first time we did the finances and didn't fight?"
Regular tracking is the key.
I do all the finances by entering everything in Quicken. Then, following my parent's example, Lana and I go through it together regularly. That way we both know where we stand and how much we can spend. I even go thrpough it all with the older children every few months so they can see how family finances work.
We avoid using checks (cheques) and try to use the one credit card or cash. We always know where we are with the credit card due to timely entry into Quicken and ensure we do not overspend so we can pay the balance each month.
Thanks Bridget for the link to Bruggie Tales. I was wondering how everyone started finding my articles on Dad's budgeting method. I have a few finance related posts linked on the blog margin.
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David
http://bruggietales.blogspot.com
dw Lana 89, dd 91, ds 93, ds 96, ds 98, dd 01, dd 04, ds 07
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TracyQ
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We also love the Catholic Answers Guide to Family Finances Book. Thank you David, for your insight. It's helped me very much to realize that I need for BOTH of us to be working on this. We often argue when we try to make financial decisions, so I'm the one at this point doing it. I hate that I can then be given all the blame (not that my dh does that, he doesn't), or that I need to take all of the guilt.
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Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
 homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Finances, budget etc whose job is it
