Tips on tracking and keeping a family budget?

[tny915]

Years ago, I used to track all our family expenses in Quicken. I used it mainly for tax purposes, so I could keep track of auto and medical expenses. I never used it to create a budget or track our expenses against it. After DD was born, I abandoned all expense tracking, because I didn't have the time or energy to track our finances in the detail that I would have liked. I never got the hang of the automatic uploads into the software from credit card or investment companies, so my process was very manual and I gave up. I generally know how much our monthly income is, generally know how much we spend, and we're lucky enough that we usually come out ahead so I can sock some away into savings.

I'd like to get started with budget and expense tracking again. Appreciate any tips you have on getting started!

[pittsburghgirl]

I do use Quicken, I use it as my checkbook register but I categorize everything so it really does give me a handle on where it's all going. The problem comes when I make a Costco or Target visit and buy a whole variety of things from groceries to clothes, etc. and trying to break that out is a hassle, I usually don't have time. Bascially, every other day or so I enter all my receipts into Quicken with categories and that's it.

I never liked the download feature from my bank, so I do it all manually and reconcile it from my paper statement.

That said we are still struggling with getting a really good handle on what we need to run our household. I am a SAHM but DH and I keep separate accounts (long story) so I transfer $ from his into mine 2x a month after paydays, and manage everything from there. Trying to figure out the magic # for those transfers has been challenging.

Marilee
mommy to James
http://b3.lilypie.com/CSwdm4.png

[searchdog]

DH is in charge of Quicken in our house and what we did was take everything that we new was a given and started by putting those in the budget, even the things that you pay once a year so that we didn't have "good months" and then "bad months". So we have everything from groceries, vehicle maint., car payments, house payments, all utility bills, insurance, lisence plates, medical, eating out, gasoline, and of course we have a misc category as well. (I am sure there are tons more, but those are off the top of my head). We use either Discover or Amex for everything that we can and DH has all the utilities, car payments, and mortgages debtited right from our checking account, oh yeah his paychecks are direct deposit as well. This is nice because we don't have to worry about paying stuff while on vacations and things since it all happens automatically. 9 times out of 10 he knows the catagory based on the stores I shop at, but if something is split, like target or walmart, I either tell him in person or figure it out from the receipt and shoot him and email so that when he sits down to do quicken at night he can put things in the right categories.

Once every 6 months to a year we sit down and analyze our spending and see if we need to adjust our spending, for example if gasoline has gone up in price and we keep going out of budget we reallocate money around.

[searchdog]

DH is in charge of Quicken in our house and what we did was take everything that we new was a given and started by putting those in the budget, even the things that you pay once a year so that we didn't have "good months" and then "bad months". So we have everything from groceries, vehicle maint., car payments, house payments, all utility bills, insurance, lisence plates, medical, eating out, gasoline, and of course we have a misc category as well. (I am sure there are tons more, but those are off the top of my head). We use either Discover or Amex for everything that we can and DH has all the utilities, car payments, and mortgages debtited right from our checking account, oh yeah his paychecks are direct deposit as well. This is nice because we don't have to worry about paying stuff while on vacations and things since it all happens automatically. 9 times out of 10 he knows the catagory based on the stores I shop at, but if something is split, like target or walmart, I either tell him in person or figure it out from the receipt and shoot him and email so that when he sits down to do quicken at night he can put things in the right categories.

Once every 6 months to a year we sit down and analyze our spending and see if we need to adjust our spending, for example if gasoline has gone up in price and we keep going out of budget we reallocate money around.

[C99]

I use Quicken and do it all with automatic downloads. I'm not so good with the budgeting part, but at least I know where most of our money is going these days...

[C99]

I use Quicken and do it all with automatic downloads. I'm not so good with the budgeting part, but at least I know where most of our money is going these days...

[madelinesmom]

Same with us... We do all the auto downloads, would love to get more into budgeting but like you said at least we have a idea of where everything is...


Jane
Madeline and Emily's Mom
1/20/03 11/29/05

[madelinesmom]

Same with us... We do all the auto downloads, would love to get more into budgeting but like you said at least we have a idea of where everything is...


Jane
Madeline and Emily's Mom
1/20/03 11/29/05

[jillc]

Ugh. My process was very manual, too - giant Excel spreadsheet tracking actuals for a couple quarters & then coming up with budget #s. I was able to use this to scrutinize where we might be able to cut some expenses, though. Unfortunately, not many areas to cut!

I gave up on exp tracking a few months ago, just b/c splitting out receipts & such became a pain. Like you, I generally know how much our monthly income is, generally know how much we spend, and know that we usually come out ahead.

I did set up a Cash workbook that I use to record all bank acct activity & balance our accts quickly. It's set up just like a bank reconciliation workbook, based upon my old work experience. ;)

[jillc]

Ugh. My process was very manual, too - giant Excel spreadsheet tracking actuals for a couple quarters & then coming up with budget #s. I was able to use this to scrutinize where we might be able to cut some expenses, though. Unfortunately, not many areas to cut!

I gave up on exp tracking a few months ago, just b/c splitting out receipts & such became a pain. Like you, I generally know how much our monthly income is, generally know how much we spend, and know that we usually come out ahead.

I did set up a Cash workbook that I use to record all bank acct activity & balance our accts quickly. It's set up just like a bank reconciliation workbook, based upon my old work experience. ;)

[Katia]

You sound like me -- before my son was born I used to keep track of things in excruciating detail, and since then...well...not so much!

I do still use Quicken, and here are a couple of things that work well for me:

--I only categorize things to the extent that the information will be useful to me later. We don't spend a lot on clothes, so it was overkill for me to break it down between what we spent on DH, DS and myself. Not a problem area for us. Dining out, well...that's another story. It's good for us to know how much we're spending there. And anything tax related (charitable contributions, etc.) is worthwhile to track, since it will save me time later on.

--I download our statement from the credit card company, and balance it to receipts I've saved. I categorize only as needed, and this process helps me make sure the credit card bill is accurate. We've had phony charges, so it's worth it to me to do this. Once I've balanced Quicken to the statement, I throw out all of the receipts that I know we no longer need.

--I don't download the bank statement. I'd rather enter my own transactions and balance to the paper statement. And nag my DH to give me his ATM receipts (really, why is this so hard? LOL).

--Rather than setting a spending budget, I've established savings goals. We have specific amounts transferred into various savings/investment accounts automatically every month. As long as we can do this without creating cash flow problems, I don't worry so much about where the other money is going. I don't mean to sound so casual about it, but mostly we are really, really frugal (except for those darn dinners out!) so the important thing is that the money gets into savings.

HTH! I've enjoyed reading what other people do -- I'm always looking for new ideas, too!

Katia
DS 2003

[Katia]

You sound like me -- before my son was born I used to keep track of things in excruciating detail, and since then...well...not so much!

I do still use Quicken, and here are a couple of things that work well for me:

--I only categorize things to the extent that the information will be useful to me later. We don't spend a lot on clothes, so it was overkill for me to break it down between what we spent on DH, DS and myself. Not a problem area for us. Dining out, well...that's another story. It's good for us to know how much we're spending there. And anything tax related (charitable contributions, etc.) is worthwhile to track, since it will save me time later on.

--I download our statement from the credit card company, and balance it to receipts I've saved. I categorize only as needed, and this process helps me make sure the credit card bill is accurate. We've had phony charges, so it's worth it to me to do this. Once I've balanced Quicken to the statement, I throw out all of the receipts that I know we no longer need.

--I don't download the bank statement. I'd rather enter my own transactions and balance to the paper statement. And nag my DH to give me his ATM receipts (really, why is this so hard? LOL).

--Rather than setting a spending budget, I've established savings goals. We have specific amounts transferred into various savings/investment accounts automatically every month. As long as we can do this without creating cash flow problems, I don't worry so much about where the other money is going. I don't mean to sound so casual about it, but mostly we are really, really frugal (except for those darn dinners out!) so the important thing is that the money gets into savings.

HTH! I've enjoyed reading what other people do -- I'm always looking for new ideas, too!

Katia
DS 2003

[LD92599]

This topic came up awhile back & I posted the budget workbook that I use. If anyone wants a copy, let me know and i'll email it (blank, of course LOL!).

I use quicken only to track our checking and savings accounts; i have reminders pop up for monthly bills that are due that are taken out automatically.

I use Excel for everything else and it works 100% for us. I think it allows us to see at a glance where we are going wrong (because the negatives end up in red) but at the same time allows me to 'transer' $$ from one segment to another. Basically it's an envelope system with each row being an envelope.

I have fixed expenses at the top of the spread and then misc costs below that. To the right i have a column that calculates what is currently in each "envelope." Another column over tells me what'll be in the 1st column on the next payday. The 3rd and 4th columns are where I enter the monthly or yearly estimated expenditure for each item.

Finally, towards the bottom I total up what we "should" have based on the 'envelopes' and then i list our account balances and cash on hand and then figure out if we're off.

There's a few worksheets in the workbook itself. The 2nd worksheet is a list of our yearly spending. Each year I save the spread and I have looked back at older sheets for one reason or another. So on the 2nd worksheet I have these columns:

Date
Amount (rounded up/down - spare change usually goes in a huge jar)
Description of the expense
Store Name
Category (if it's Costco and there's food, misc and clothing, I'll enter it onto 3 lines)

3rd worksheet is a list of current credit card expenditures. DH uses an Amex alot more than I do (though I use mine ALOT more for work) so I find it to be extremely helpful to me to see what the running total is vs. getting a huge bill at the start of the month and not knowing what's on it.

That's about it! This system definitely helps us come tax time.

Laura
Will is three...and doesn't sleep :-(

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[tina-t]

We use Quicken and it really helps us see where the money is going. Dh is in charge of entering most of the stuff in; although, I do my part too.

[casey118]

Laura,
I'm emailing you for a copy of your worksheet. Thanks for offering it up!
Kimberly

[lilycat88]

ME too. Thanks so much. A budget is our New Year's Resolution.


Jamelin
Mom to Susanna born 6/29/2004

[kbudsberg]

I use the budgeting feature of Money. It works really well. I don't like using the automatic downloading of accounts. I do it manually because it works better for me that way. We put most everything on cc and pay it off each month. I treat the cc like a checking account and enter every receipt and assign it to a catagory. At places where I buy several catagories I just put the items together while checking out. So the household items get scanned first, clothing next, health care together, food together, etc. Then I split the entry and can look add the amounts easilier by looking at the receipt. It's not exact because of tax and coupons but it's close enough. I really like the Money budgeting program. It has some quirks but I don't think there is a perfect system. I love being able to chart and pull reports.

Kim

[annex]

I recently found this book ("All Your Worth") to be helpful in forcing me to check where my family's money was going:
http://www.mdmproofing.com/iym/BMF.shtml

The authors also wrote the "Two Income Trap" so they've done a lot of research into how Americans typically overextend certain "must have" parts of their budget (usually mortgages) then fall into bankruptcy when one spouse gets sick, laid off, etc and don't have a savings cushion etc. to get them through the loss of income. They argue that you should have no more than 50% of your income going to "must haves", and at least 20% to savings, and 30% to everything else.

Filling out their worksheets was nice because it didn't involve saving receipts to figure out how much exactly you spend on clothes vs diapers etc. Basically you figure out what your income is, subtract the "must-have" bills (mortgage, insurance, daycare, etc.) and how much you put in savings, and the rest is all one "wants" sludge-pile. In my family's case, it turns out our "must haves" are a bit higher than they should be (around 60%), savings a bit above (30%!) and wants pretty low (10%). It helped me see that, unless I can increase the hours I work and up my income, I should probably put more effort into shopping around for better deals on "must have" things like car insurance than foregoing buying the occasional frivolous thing like a cd or Starbucks.

HTH,
Anne

[LD92599]

Just responded to everyone that emailed....

Laura
Will is three...and doesn't sleep :-(

[img]http://b4.lilypie.com/vEOmm4.png

Use a Mac? Interested in learning more about them? Join us!
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