Managing/Budgeting Money

mobrad

mobrad

Shim Shammer
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Location
hickory
Does anyone here have a strict budget...my wife and I go through money like no tomorrow. We do not live beyond our means but it just seems like we are always run "low" in money but don't make big purchases. We have figured out that food and the like is where huge chunk of out money goes and we are not even overweight(that might be a little more understandable). How do y'all generally manage your money?
 
Wife writes out a budget the beginning of each month. Gives each dollar a place to go. We set aside X amount of dollars for food, that includes groceries, any extra from that we may eat out with. We try to avoid eating out (but have drifted from this as of late). We try to make a meal that will give leftovers for another night, then make a different meal the next night and offset the leftovers. So Monday we make spaghetti, save leftovers,Tuesday we make something else, Wednesday we have leftover spaghetti, and Thursday we have Tuesdays leftovers. That way we are not eating the same thing 2 nights in a row.
While some on here do not agree, and we tweaked the plan a little, we got on track with the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover and it has changed our lives dramatically! We are on track to be debt free by next year other than our house.
My income varies because I get paid commission on my last paycheck of the month. So we take all extra money that has accumulated and pay as much extra as we can on our smallest debt. When that is paid off we roll the extra+the minimum over on the next one in line. This has proven to work very well for us. By starting with the smallest one you actually see the results quickly and it keeps us motivated to keep doing more and more. In just a few months we should be paying $1000+ on her school loan, which will knock it out quickly.
The main thing is assigning your money a place to go right off the bat, rather than just spending as needed/wanted. If you set aside $300 for misc purchases, and you use all that before the end of the month, if it's not an emergency you just do without. It's all based on self discipline, which is hard in a world that tells you that you need it now, right now.
 
One thing we did once, when we were first married and trying to get a handle on where our money was going, was to do everything in CASH for a couple of months. We took envelopes and placed cash in them for different things, like cable TV, food, rent, etc. It was very eye opening to see where it was going.

I wouldn't say we are strict on our budget, but we have a set fixed amount we live off of each month.
We are both paid biweekly, which is kind of a pain since most bills are monthly. So what I did was to set a separate "slush" account that our paychecks go into, then once a month a flat amount is drafted from that into our checking account. Then we specifically ignore the slush account.
The great thing about that is that I set the monthly "allowance" to be less than the actual average monthly income, so over time the amount in the slush increases to where there is a big savings but we don't have to do anything special to save money. It just happens.
For instance we get 26 paychecks a year but the monthly allowance is the equivalent of 2 of them - so over 2 years, we saved 2 whole months worth of our monthly allowance as emergency money.
Then each year as my pay increases, I have kept the allowance the same so the amount saved goes up even more.

Eating out, and eating easy-prep food can add up considerably.

We occasionally also go through our checking account history and color code the expenses by category (food, kids expenses, eating out, whatever). This helps us see what our big expenses are.
 
i got rid of the wife 12 years ago... even paying child support i had more money!

got full custody of both my daughters 10.5 years ago... dont know what to do with all the money i saved.....
 
We set up multiple savings, checking, and investment accounts and direct deposit into them via our paychecks. Makes saving a lot easier and we have gotten used to living on just eat is deposited into our joint account. I think my direct deposit sends $ each pay period into 5 different accounts. We set up our savings accounts up without ATM cards so we couldn't easily withdraw without going to the bank in person. We also set it up at a bank other than where we usually bank so it isn't linked via the banking app, etc and we can't easily transfer $ out. It could be a pain in an emergency after hours or on weekends but for anything that may happen we should have enough readily available for 99.9% of any emergency.

We saw how much we were spending eating out and we now don't do that nearly as much.
 
I've got separate accounts my paycheck gets deposited and a certain amount automatically goes into a sperate account, while the rest goes into my checking. I figured what my monthly expenses were and figured out how much I needed out of every pay check to make that happen. I give myself an extra 2-300 a month for anything extra i might want. So I basically never look at or do anything in my savings
 
Paycheck direct deposits into a family account that the bills come out of. Those debit cards stay locked in my safe. Wife and I both have allowance accounts that $$ transfers to at the start of each month. Allowance accounts are for whatever we want to spend it on or save it for a big purchase. Also been doing the debt snowball method. We will be debt free except the house by next summer.
 
Follow Ramsey, ditch all but 1 or 2 credit cards and pay them off in total monthly. Drive old cars, keep one car loan (low amount, used car) to help build/rebuild credit and payment history.....and you'll be here before you know it:


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jeepguy242 said:
THIS


you can cook a better steak than any restaurant on a charcoal webber and have a better meal for alot less
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This x2

We also take the fat cut off the steaks (and bones if we get bone-in steaks) and put them in a crock pot (or two) of water over night. We then pour it into zip-lock bags and freeze. When a recipe calls for beef broth, bingo - we thaw a pack and in it goes. All free. We do the same with chicken. If we are feeling lazy, we will get a rotisserie chicken from Costco for dinner. What doesn't get eaten right off the bat, gets plucked from the bone for a chicken pie to be made later. We then take the bones and put them in the crockpot with water to make homemade chicken stock. Next to no work involved other than straining it.

I've learned how to cook pretty well and can cook just about anything I'm hungry for at a restaurant. Chinese, Italian, Greek, Mexican, seafood, steak - you name it.
 
ManglerYJ said:
This x2

We also take the fat cut off the steaks (and bones if we get bone-in steaks) and put them in a crock pot (or two) of water over night. We then pour it into zip-lock bags and freeze. When a recipe calls for beef broth, bingo - we thaw a pack and in it goes. All free. We do the same with chicken. If we are feeling lazy, we will get a rotisserie chicken from Costco for dinner. What doesn't get eaten right off the bat, gets plucked from the bone for a chicken pie to be made later. We then take the bones and put them in the crockpot with water to make homemade chicken stock. Next to no work involved other than straining it.

I've learned how to cook pretty well and can cook just about anything I'm hungry for at a restaurant. Chinese, Italian, Greek, Mexican, seafood, steak - you name it.
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never thought of that! home made broth...

i also like to buy whole chickens and when i cook my steak, to not waste the coals i put the chicken on when the coals start dying down... close the vents to keep the temp around 200 and forget it for a couple of hours... dont buy lunchmeat anymore, i use the chicken to make sammichiz and then whats left gets de boned and made into chicken noodle stew... we can eat for a week on that stuff
 
I keep a strict budget on a spreadsheet. It reminds me how much money we spend every month and helps me pay off debt faster. I keep a set budget for groceries and put money away each month for Xmas gifts and travel so those big expenses don't hit us all at once. I also take out cash each paycheck (bi-weekly) for misc stuff like eating out and once its gone, its gone. This spreadsheet also tracks my net worth. You can use Mint or similar if you want to automate it more, but I like having the ability to play with budget scenarios and things like that in an ole-fashioned spreadsheet.
 
jeepguy242 said:
never thought of that! home made broth...

i also like to buy whole chickens and when i cook my steak, to not waste the coals i put the chicken on when the coals start dying down... close the vents to keep the temp around 200 and forget it for a couple of hours... dont buy lunchmeat anymore, i use the chicken to make sammichiz and then whats left gets de boned and made into chicken noodle stew... we can eat for a week on that stuff
Click to expand...

We also buy ground beef, chicken and pork in bulk and process it down to pack sizes at home. We usually get about 80 lbs of ground beef and make a bunch of setups of Salisbury steak and we also take about 40 lbs of it and fry it all down, drain the fat and package the fried beef into 1 lb bags. Then, if I need to make a quick meal in the evening due to ball or cheer practice, I get two boxes of hamburger helper and one of the fried lbs and supper is ready in about 30 minutes. Have to think ahead a little to thaw the beef, but no big deal. We also use the packs for chili (hers has no beans, mine has like 5 kinds of beans), tacos, burritos, enchiladas, etc.

Food has been our biggest cutback in our budget since we started. We still budget $700 a month for food (which includes paper products and cleaning supplies) for our family of 5. The month of May we are already at $699, but that included a $400 Costco trip that will stock us up for at least 3 months and a $167 Harris Teeter trip which started out with the cash register hitting $450+ before Vic card and two coupons. Yes, TWO coupons.

We only go out to eat on birthdays and VERY odd occasions when it's just impractical to go home to eat. Many times, I will fry up a pack of bacon and make chicken bacon ranch wraps for us to eat on the go. We almost always have some boneless grilled chicken in the fridge as I grill about a pack of it a week.

We are a bit strange, however, as we have a one month meal plan at any given time. We used to go a week at a time, but I found we were having a lot of the same things week after week, so planning out a month at a time, spreads the repeats out and makes me have to be a little more creative.
 
We started budgeting in January after realizing that we were basically eating my salary :( I printed 6 months of bank statements & color coded every category of spending so we could identify where the money was going (primarily restaurants). I use everydollar.com to create our monthly budgets & track expenses - it's free & user friendly. I always ask for my hubby's input & make sure he reviews it too (which is how we ended up with a "fishing" expense category :confused:). Budgeting takes planning & self-discipline...and there's definitely a learning curve but it's nice to know exactly where each dollar is going ;)
 
ManglerYJ said:
We are a bit strange, however, as we have a one month meal plan at any given time. We used to go a week at a time, but I found we were having a lot of the same things week after week, so planning out a month at a time, spreads the repeats out and makes me have to be a little more creative.
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Have you seen any health benefits from this? Seems like there would be a ton. I'd rather do it for the healthy eating that the money savings. Eating out all the time will put the weight on ya fast!
 
Wow...I never thought this thread would take off like it has. Its pretty interesting to hear the different methods of making ends meet! Thanks guys...another reason why I like this forum. Good, honest, down to earth people!
 
BigBody79 said:
Have you seen any health benefits from this? Seems like there would be a ton. I'd rather do it for the healthy eating that the money savings. Eating out all the time will put the weight on ya fast!
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It probably would if I changed the "type" of food I ate. The meals we eat at home are still just as fattening, I'm sure, because I eat to enjoy the taste of the food. We do keep to normal size portions, but we could do better. We aren't morbidly obese, but we could both stand to lose a bunch of weight. Hopefully when the garden comes in this summer we will have a lot more fresh produce to use in recipes and will help a bit. My kids look like they could use a cheeseburger or two, though!


It might change more if I went from "I can cook" to "I am a culinary school trained chef". I pretty much follow recipes. Sometimes I change them up a little bit - usually based on a food that I'm missing from the recipe. One day I hope to be an even better cook, but for now, I'm satisfied if my kids clean their plates. I don't know the difference between Extra Virgin Olive Oil and the slutty kind.
 
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So am I the only one that just spends the hell out of money and not worry about it???

On a serious note, if I can't buy it out right I just don't buy it (except the house of course) cars, toys, what ever. If you need a locker for the jeep, pull $50 out every week and buy it when you have enough this way you don't get lost in credit cards. Alot of it has to do with what makes you happy, personally I don't need to roll around in a 2016 f350! I am fine with a paid for 04 odyssey!..ect..

Something I did that works good for my family was, I created a life style where I can pay every bill with one pay check (payed every two weeks) it just so happens that I can split my bills perfectly in half, money wise so every paycheck I still have half of it left to do what ever I want.

One more thing I like to do. Round your bill up every month, so if the light bill is $130 pay $150 ignore the credit next month and keep paying a little more by the time Christmas comes around all your bills will have huge credits and you can skip paying them for that month and use all the extra money for gifts, or keep doing it for a sumer vacation. Last year I didn't have to pay the power bill for two months! Does that make sense? It's not very well written! But hey I am a dumb ass!!!! Lol
 
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I largely converted back to cash this year after a credit card fraud and started crock-potting a lot of meals so I could bring things to work for lunch that weren't just sandwiches. The cash method did cause a significant slowdown in the outflow of discretionary money each month.

I have my paycheck split between two accounts (general and retirement), the retirement account automatically gets drafted by my brokerage. The general account automatically transfers out to a different bank where it pays the mortgage, mind you that is not an auto-draft so I can control it.

I write checks (yes, those) to pay the normal bills so I am looking at my check register a couple times a month which reminds me what I have and where it is going. After I figure up what the next two weeks of checks will be I manually transfer some of the money to savings.

I think all the automated drafts, payments, etc in general make folks lazy and cause them to forget about their money and where it all goes.
 
All this talk really gets me scratching my noggin. I let my wife handle all money at our house. I couldn't tell you what any of our bills run. We used to try and keep a budget and it seemed to work, but any more, we just go along and buy whatever we want when we want it or need it.

I usually meal plan one week at a time. I buy all our meats in bulk, if I can, and divide and freeze for later use. I really wish we could stop going out to eat. I do the majority of the cooking, so there are a lot of days when we grab something out because I have a crap ton of stuff to do in the afternoon and don't feel like cooking.
 
justjeepin86 said:
All this talk really gets me scratching my noggin. I let my wife handle all money at our house. I couldn't tell you what any of our bills run. We used to try and keep a budget and it seemed to work, but any more, we just go along and buy whatever we want when we want it or need it.

I usually meal plan one week at a time. I buy all our meats in bulk, if I can, and divide and freeze for later use. I really wish we could stop going out to eat. I do the majority of the cooking, so there are a lot of days when we grab something out because I have a crap ton of stuff to do in the afternoon and don't feel like cooking.
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This is abou exactly what we do.


We have savings, retirement, and bills budgeted in a joint account. The rest just gets spent on house stuff, food, and buggy parts. We have varying schedules; neither Bri or I have a set work schedule, so dinner, if it happens, is usually whatever is convenient that day. This week, at least one of us hadn't gotten home for the evening before 11pm. That is usual to the point we budget for eating out because of schedule unknowns and convenience on a busy schedule.
 
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