Haven
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2007
- Messages
- 13,166
RE: Combining Finances
We''ve recently done an overhaul of how we manage our finances, so I''m going to share. It wasn''t a source of anxiety or stress for us, so it didn''t make our first year difficult or anything, but it did take a few trials and errors to figure out.
We ended up merging our two checking accounts into one, and did the same with our savings accounts. We aren''t impulse shoppers, and we keep a fairly large extra chunk of money in our checking account as padding, so we don''t have any problems with overdrafting. I go into our account online twice a month and manually transfer 20% of all deposits into savings, so that''s how we handle that. I''ve been using a great Excel budget spreadsheet for years, I think I got it off of a credit management website. It has a detailed list of income and expenses and all of the formulas are set up to calculate total spent and taken in each month, and it gives you a percentage of extra income, too. This is what we use to budget.
Our biggest problem was with organizing how we pay our bills, so this is what we did:
I created two documents to help us keep track of our bills: A detailed list of bills, and a checklist for the year.
The detailed list lists all of our regular bills, the company names addresses and phone numbers, the amount or expected amount of each bill, notes about each item (e.g. Payoff amt for mortgage, pay every 3 mos, etc.,) due dates, and the way we pay each item (e.g. check, online, autopay).
The checklist for the year has the days of the month in the first column (e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd,) the list of bills in the second column (e.g. Mortgage) with details about how we pay (e.g. auto, online,) and then the rest of the sheet has twelve columns going across it, one for each month. As we pay each bill we either put a check in the column for that month if we pay online or if it''s automatically paid, or the check number if we pay by check.
We keep the checklist in a file organizer in the kitchen, and we also put all of our bills in the same file as we get them in the mail. This way it''s all in one place, it''s easily accessible, and we both check it daily to make sure we''re taking care of the bills. We keep a copy of the detailed list behind the checklist so we know where to send checks if we don''t get a bill in the mail. It''s been working quite well for us for a few months now.
Anyway, if money were tight I can see this becoming a huge source of stress so I would totally recommend figuring out the details early on. I never lived with anyone before we married, so for me it was really scary relinquishing control of some bills to my husband. Now that we have the checklist I feel much better.
Okay, sorry this is so long. Didn''t mean to be.
We''ve recently done an overhaul of how we manage our finances, so I''m going to share. It wasn''t a source of anxiety or stress for us, so it didn''t make our first year difficult or anything, but it did take a few trials and errors to figure out.
We ended up merging our two checking accounts into one, and did the same with our savings accounts. We aren''t impulse shoppers, and we keep a fairly large extra chunk of money in our checking account as padding, so we don''t have any problems with overdrafting. I go into our account online twice a month and manually transfer 20% of all deposits into savings, so that''s how we handle that. I''ve been using a great Excel budget spreadsheet for years, I think I got it off of a credit management website. It has a detailed list of income and expenses and all of the formulas are set up to calculate total spent and taken in each month, and it gives you a percentage of extra income, too. This is what we use to budget.
Our biggest problem was with organizing how we pay our bills, so this is what we did:
I created two documents to help us keep track of our bills: A detailed list of bills, and a checklist for the year.
The detailed list lists all of our regular bills, the company names addresses and phone numbers, the amount or expected amount of each bill, notes about each item (e.g. Payoff amt for mortgage, pay every 3 mos, etc.,) due dates, and the way we pay each item (e.g. check, online, autopay).
The checklist for the year has the days of the month in the first column (e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd,) the list of bills in the second column (e.g. Mortgage) with details about how we pay (e.g. auto, online,) and then the rest of the sheet has twelve columns going across it, one for each month. As we pay each bill we either put a check in the column for that month if we pay online or if it''s automatically paid, or the check number if we pay by check.
We keep the checklist in a file organizer in the kitchen, and we also put all of our bills in the same file as we get them in the mail. This way it''s all in one place, it''s easily accessible, and we both check it daily to make sure we''re taking care of the bills. We keep a copy of the detailed list behind the checklist so we know where to send checks if we don''t get a bill in the mail. It''s been working quite well for us for a few months now.
Anyway, if money were tight I can see this becoming a huge source of stress so I would totally recommend figuring out the details early on. I never lived with anyone before we married, so for me it was really scary relinquishing control of some bills to my husband. Now that we have the checklist I feel much better.
Okay, sorry this is so long. Didn''t mean to be.
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