LadyFaile
August 13th, 2007, 12:32 PM
my god we're lazy. such a couple of procrastinators. we forget to pay bills and then they pile up to huge amounts so it's hard to deal with them when we finally do. not because we don't have the money at the time but because we really forget.
and we have different payments coming out at different times of the month, because we both get paid weekly there's never enough in there to pay all the bills at once so we have to spread them out. we used to have a nice buffer in the account which was fantastic, but with the wedding and other expenses this past winter we used it up and now are living paycheque to paycheque.
so we really want to get organized and start taking better care of our finances. our goals are:
pay our bills on time
rebuild our buffer
put extra cash in savings every month to go towards a trip next summer
maybe pay a little extra into our loan every month to pay it down quicker
i think these are reasonable goals. what we have to work on to achieve them is cut our grocery bill in half (i'm also tricking hubby into eating healthier in the process. 80% of our grocery bill is frozen processed stuff for him to eat while i'm at work. we're going to work on making batches of stuff to reheat through the week instead), cut back extra spending (from takeout, coffee, junkfood and drinks at work etc)
and get organized!!! i think it's the most important one because we really are horrible. we feel terrible that our finances are in such bad shape simply because we're lazy and unmotivated. we've tried before but we have something to look forward to this time (trip) so maybe it will help us stick with it.
anyone else have trouble with keeping finances organized? we could post tips to help each other and encourage each other :)
one thing that we did do was see a financial planner at the bank. it didn't cost anything and she sat with us for a long time working everything out with us trying to figure out where our money was going. she looked at our bank accounts and showed us that we were on the wrong banking packages and spending more in fees than we needed to. also hubby had been using non-bank atm machines to withdraw money and getting charged fees to do so. he's gotten better. he doesn't need to go to the bank often, but i do since i'm payed by cheque not direct deposit. so what we're going to try is i will withdraw my usual $20 for spending money for the week and i will withdraw the same for him also so he won't need to use other machines. then the rule will be that if we run out of our weekly spending money we can do without ___ until the next week rather than take out more money or use debit.
also she suggested that since we're paid weekly and having bills come out all at once is hard on us, we could pre-pay weekly through our online banking. doesn't work for rent and loan payments but for stuff like electric and gas bills, phones and cable, rather than wait for the bills to come in and pay them we will sit down with the last few bills and find out the average cost. if a bill is $80 a month we will set up our online banking to take out $20/week. then if one month the bill is a little lower the extra will be saved up as a credit so if we go over another month it's covered. she said companies usually don't mind, they don't care how they get paid as long as they do. i think it's a great idea and we'll be less likely to spend extra money in the account on payday knowing we have 2 weeks til we have to pay stuff, if it's constantly coming out we'll be more careful.
we've also tried doing up a monthly budget on excel and we haven't been able to stick with it. so what hubby wants to try instead is get a pad of graph paper or something and keep it by the computer so we can do it all by hand. we're both more the type to jot something down on paper than organize it all nice and neat on the computer. so we'll try it that way since we're more likely to stick with it. when we had roommates we kept up with it because we had to divide the bills up and keep track of who owed what etc.
we have a little slotted mail holder we never use. when a bill comes in it usually gets lost in the mess on the desk until we pay it. once we do we just mark 'paid' on the bill and toss it back into the mess lol. if it comes out directly maybe we can keep better tabs on the bills with the holder, keep them for the month and then toss them once everything's paid up. we do like to hang on to them for a couple months so we can compare month to month and see if our electric has gone up or down. sometimes it goes up a little and we try to be more conscious of turning stuff off to get it back down, etc. we can just keep track in our notebook instead and toss the bills
so what's everyone else doing to stay/get organized?
and we have different payments coming out at different times of the month, because we both get paid weekly there's never enough in there to pay all the bills at once so we have to spread them out. we used to have a nice buffer in the account which was fantastic, but with the wedding and other expenses this past winter we used it up and now are living paycheque to paycheque.
so we really want to get organized and start taking better care of our finances. our goals are:
pay our bills on time
rebuild our buffer
put extra cash in savings every month to go towards a trip next summer
maybe pay a little extra into our loan every month to pay it down quicker
i think these are reasonable goals. what we have to work on to achieve them is cut our grocery bill in half (i'm also tricking hubby into eating healthier in the process. 80% of our grocery bill is frozen processed stuff for him to eat while i'm at work. we're going to work on making batches of stuff to reheat through the week instead), cut back extra spending (from takeout, coffee, junkfood and drinks at work etc)
and get organized!!! i think it's the most important one because we really are horrible. we feel terrible that our finances are in such bad shape simply because we're lazy and unmotivated. we've tried before but we have something to look forward to this time (trip) so maybe it will help us stick with it.
anyone else have trouble with keeping finances organized? we could post tips to help each other and encourage each other :)
one thing that we did do was see a financial planner at the bank. it didn't cost anything and she sat with us for a long time working everything out with us trying to figure out where our money was going. she looked at our bank accounts and showed us that we were on the wrong banking packages and spending more in fees than we needed to. also hubby had been using non-bank atm machines to withdraw money and getting charged fees to do so. he's gotten better. he doesn't need to go to the bank often, but i do since i'm payed by cheque not direct deposit. so what we're going to try is i will withdraw my usual $20 for spending money for the week and i will withdraw the same for him also so he won't need to use other machines. then the rule will be that if we run out of our weekly spending money we can do without ___ until the next week rather than take out more money or use debit.
also she suggested that since we're paid weekly and having bills come out all at once is hard on us, we could pre-pay weekly through our online banking. doesn't work for rent and loan payments but for stuff like electric and gas bills, phones and cable, rather than wait for the bills to come in and pay them we will sit down with the last few bills and find out the average cost. if a bill is $80 a month we will set up our online banking to take out $20/week. then if one month the bill is a little lower the extra will be saved up as a credit so if we go over another month it's covered. she said companies usually don't mind, they don't care how they get paid as long as they do. i think it's a great idea and we'll be less likely to spend extra money in the account on payday knowing we have 2 weeks til we have to pay stuff, if it's constantly coming out we'll be more careful.
we've also tried doing up a monthly budget on excel and we haven't been able to stick with it. so what hubby wants to try instead is get a pad of graph paper or something and keep it by the computer so we can do it all by hand. we're both more the type to jot something down on paper than organize it all nice and neat on the computer. so we'll try it that way since we're more likely to stick with it. when we had roommates we kept up with it because we had to divide the bills up and keep track of who owed what etc.
we have a little slotted mail holder we never use. when a bill comes in it usually gets lost in the mess on the desk until we pay it. once we do we just mark 'paid' on the bill and toss it back into the mess lol. if it comes out directly maybe we can keep better tabs on the bills with the holder, keep them for the month and then toss them once everything's paid up. we do like to hang on to them for a couple months so we can compare month to month and see if our electric has gone up or down. sometimes it goes up a little and we try to be more conscious of turning stuff off to get it back down, etc. we can just keep track in our notebook instead and toss the bills
so what's everyone else doing to stay/get organized?