We all want. We all covet. It’s part of human nature. And with so many things costing money, a budget often feels like it’s the killer of dreams. For example, I desperately want new floors. We have the worst carpet ever, and even with steam cleaning, it still looks awful. The linoleum in the kitchen and bath can’t be more recent than the early 70s. It’s ugly and oh how I want it gone. I wantread more…

Do you get an annual raise? I do. It comes every April and is usually around 3%. So, in order to make my retirement savings keep growing, I also have my 403(b) contribution set to go up 1% every April. This way, I still get to see extra money in my paycheck, but my retirement savings sees extra money, too. I never get used to having more and then have to dial back. Instead, it allread more…

This blog is the perfect example. I decided I wanted to do a financial blog and jumped right in, gung ho, with a plan in the back of my mind of posting every weekday. A week later, my theory was posting Monday-Thursday. That lasted about 2 days, and now its been 2 weeks since I’ve posted. I fell off the wagon. That’s what often happens with a first budget. People go in to the budget processread more…

Its common for one member of a couple to be the CFO for the family. If one person is more interested (or more anal) about tracking these things, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m the one that maintains all the spreadsheets for our household, because my husband just doesn’t care about the specific cent, as long as we’re doing okay. The important thing in this type of relationship, though, is clear communication between the couple. Weread more…

Okay, this may not seem like fun to people who aren’t as Excel and analysis obsessed as I am, but here’s a bit of financial analysis I sent my husband last December. (Note that the 2010 averages only go through November.) Over the 5 years from 2005-2009, we put ~ $800 in savings. To be fair, we put a little over $6k in savings in 2006, but then spent about $5k of that in 2008 toread more…

A little over a year ago, I joined a thread over on the Women in Red board where we track whether or not we spend any money each day, and if we do spend money, is it a controlled spend or not. For me, controlled spend days means I was planning on spending money that day. I may not know the exact amount we will spend, like on grovery shopping days, but I know we’ll beread more…

Continuing our theory that a budget is like a diet- an effort to fundamentally change your relationship with money –its important to note that in any long term budget, you MUST give yourself some wiggle room. Just like if you deny yourself any sweets for months on end, one night your bound to end up eating an entire quart of ice cream in one sitting, if you deny yourself any fun money for too long, oneread more…

It’s important to always plan ahead- to know when money is scheduled to go out and when its coming in. Your money doesn’t care about arbitrary things like the end of the month. Just because you have enough on April 30 does not mean you’ll have enough on May 1, if you don’t get any money between April 29 and May 13. I know this seems beyond basic, silly even, to be posting about. Do Iread more…

We have a $400/month grocery budget. For 2 people and 2 dogs, this is pretty high, even if it includes all household items (toothpaste and toilet paper, etc) and dog food. Over on the money boards, there are people who feed a family of 4 on less. So, if I were to need to cut our budget, this would be a good place to start. And the truth is, with rising gas and grocery prices, andread more…

This month has been a rather expensive one for us. We adopted a new dog ($300), paid our taxes ($1000), and had work done on the car ($1400). Those are all expenditures that aren’t in the normal monthly budget, though we do have savings specifically to cover these things.However, April also happens to be a 3 paycheck month for me, and I’m also getting a small bonus.Today I fleshed out the final April budget, accounting forread more…