Earlier this year Nate and I have set ourselves goals and determination to get our life bugdeted and in order to be financially careful in our spendings and our paying of debt.
This is very sad to admit but after being married for 5 years we still hadn't known the basics of money. We have learned things as we've grown with adulthood, but I can't recall being sat down and actually shown how important or even how to track my $$$. If you are anything like we were, we often found ourselves frustrated monthly with eachother in why we came up short every month! With our recent discovery.. (it took almost a year for me to realize!) We were always spending more a month than what we actually were bringing in! YIKES!!! Of course our overdraft became our best friend and we are forever grateful for the savings in overdraft fees and any other kind of extra money we were spending by going in the hole! With some guidance with a couple of GREAT!!!friends, we were introduced to Quicken. This program has allowed us to talley up our bills and spendings and the best part is this.. we run reports on what our spending habits are and categorize what each reciept was for. This has allowed us the opportunity to actually BUDGET!
Nate and I sit down and we talk about and now have an understanding of what money we really do have and really make conscience decisions together in what our wants and our needs are and we now motivate and help eachother in where our money is spent each month. We found unusual and very unhealthy spending habits, And a lot of unnecessary purchases... okay I love shopping! and we ate out A LOT! I have now learned what my limits are anyway, to make a long story short!
We recently went through and budgeted for the rest of the year, especially with the holidays approaching rapidly we found that we have very little to spend. :( Sad day for me.
I have found a few specific blogs that I reference to frequently for inspiration and guidance in my life. Some of them, happen to be a relative of a friend or a friend of a friend but I am hooked at the constant reminders of life these blogs bring me. And I have to share a link to a site that was up on one of them that freshened my whole perspective on my budget and the spirit of Christmas. check it out here:
http://theerrandofangelsblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-slacker.html.
I would love to hear any ideas you may have on budgeting.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
