This is part four in my series on our money. Past posts:
Part One: The book that changed it all.
Part Two: our debt
Part Three: teaching our kids about money
On our quest to live debt-free (in accordance with the Good book and The ABC’s of Financial Freedom
) we’ve been working on our family budget.
) we’ve been working on our family budget.Chris and I took a financial class through our church before we got married. It wasn’t Financial Peace, but followed some of the same principles. And since we’ve been married (over six years), we’ve been on a budget.
I get paid every two weeks and Chris gets a paycheck every week. Mine is the same amount each time because I’m salaried, but Chris’ varies greatly. It’s anywhere from $50-$200 depending on how much he worked and what jobs he did (Chris stays home with our girls and works one night a week and occasional Saturdays. In the summer when I’m home, he works full time). So we do our budget solely off my paycheck and look at Chris’ income as extra.
Our budget is broken down into two parts: the first pay check of the month and the second.
With our first pay check, we pay:
-our mortgage
-for groceries ($175)
-for gas for both vehicles ($100+/-)
-our electric bill
With our second pay check, we pay:
-our cell phone bill
-buy groceries ($175)
-for gas for both vehicles ($100+/-)
-our life/car insurance
-our internet bill
-our natural gas bill
-my student loans ($225)
-our tithe
-our Visa (for monthly charges we are in the process of transferring to our checking account : Hulu, Netflix, YMCA, etc.)
One monthly expense we don’t have in the budget but normally is paid for with Chris’ pay check is Elliott’s preschool. She goes two mornings a week and Chris’ income pays for that.
We have $125 that comes directly out of my pay check and into our savings account as well as retirement investments. We also have pre-tax money that goes into an HSA account that covers things like doctor visits, prescriptions, eyeglasses, etc. Of course, that’s in addition to health, dental, and vision insurance for our family and an employer-related life insurance policy on me. After typing that, I just figured out where all our money goes each month. Geez.
We’re still trying to re-vamp some things based on the lessons we learned from the series our church did on Cameron’s book. We really just need about 10-12 hours more in the weekend and this could be accomplished. Actually, a whole day would be nice. Maybe we can get it done over the upcoming four-day weekend. Fingers crossed.
We follow the above budget religiously. It’s simple and easy to follow. Any extra money is money for frivolous things like eating out, clothes shopping, presents, etc. One of the things we need to do with out new budget is allot a certain amount of money for those things (a clothing budget, an out-to-eat budget, a birthday/wedding/shower budget, etc.) instead of just spending what’s left. Because sometimes it’s more than we need to spend, but we spend it because we feel like we can.
At the end of the sermon series over The ABC’s of Financial Freedom, Cameron came to preach at our church. One of the things he said was you would never just go to the refrigerator and decided to eat everything in it, so why do you look at your checking account and think you should spend everything in it? That was eye-opening for me. If it was extra and it was there, we were spending it. So we’re working hard on just having extra and not feeling like it has to be spent immediately. This is harder than it sounds because, you guys, I love spending money.
, Cameron came to preach at our church. One of the things he said was you would never just go to the refrigerator and decided to eat everything in it, so why do you look at your checking account and think you should spend everything in it? That was eye-opening for me. If it was extra and it was there, we were spending it. So we’re working hard on just having extra and not feeling like it has to be spent immediately. This is harder than it sounds because, you guys, I love spending money.Two random side notes:
1. Because we follow the above budget pretty religiously, twice a year we end up with what we call an “extra” pay check because we get so far ahead in our bill paying. Extra money to save, buy something off our “needs” list, or put toward our next vacation.
2. We keep our budget, bills, needs list, and a list of money goals in our financial binder. It’s nothing fancy, just a binder from Wal-Mart that has expenses, payment schedules, our wish lists, and a couple folders in it. It’s just nice to have it all in one place and I pull it out every two weeks to pay bills and balance the checkbook.
There’s our family budget in a nutshell–do you have a family budget? Who pays the bills in your family? I’m always interested to hear how other households work and curious about who handles the money. Budgets: yay or nay?
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I definitely need to start a budget. I am usually the one who does all the bill paying, and it can be stressful!
I do the budget and bill paying for the most part. Steve will pay something when I ask him to. We are tightening up the purse strings in order to buy our first house this summer. It’s amazing at where the money goes when you add it up. We usually eat our money, as in it all goes to something food related. Eating out really adds up!