Budget billing: it works for us

                              We signed up for budget billing with our electric company a good number of years back and that is our sole experience with budget billing.  I like it so much better this way because you are sent the same payment each month.  How does it work?  Well for us, the electric company sends us an averaged payment each month [...]

Not knowing your financial picture before marriage

Well, let me tell you our story. How naive we were to enter into marriage without discussing what our financial picture would look like in the coming months.  I really had no idea of the kind of debt or bills that Mike had.  And vice versa, he wasn’t real aware of the monthly payments on [...]

Dave Ramsey Sale!

ONLY IF YOU HAVE CASH AND IT IS IN THE BUDGET, should you go to this site:: Dave Ramsey is having a $10 sale through Labor Day on many of his resources such as books and audios.  I read his book, Financial Peace, over 10 years ago and still recommend it.  Check it out!

Debt! Debt! Debt!

I’ve read several articles and books on how much debt is acceptable.  Some state that debt should be no more than 5% of your income; others state you should not have debt at all.  There may be times when you feel you must go into debt in order to better your life such as a school loan.  Remember though… The [...]

Joint versus Separate Accounts

There are married couples who have separate savings and checking accounts.  Though I will argue that having joint accounts is best for several reasons.   At the get go of our marriage, Mike and I have always had joint accounts for our money. Having separate accounts really never crossed my mind and even now really isn’t an option [...]

Expense Categories

Here’s two examples of categorizing your expenses.  Since using Quicken, I have a Main Category and Sub Categories.  So my Dining Out category has sub-categories (lunch, dinner, coffee). This helped clarify which meal time we spent the most on.  Since my husband loves coffee, we were also able to tell how much a month he was spending [...]

No Technology Finance Managing

A conversation with a blog visitor helped remind me that not all people track their expenses using a computer or finance program.  I’ve used Quicken for over 12 years to help manage our money.  There have been times where I briefly used the paper route way and I’ve taught how to manage finances without using technology.  It’s not worse than tracking [...]

Paying for College Classes

Right now I am taking graduate college classes so that I can obtain a permanent teaching certificate in special education.  I started taking classes this past summer and have paid for them out-of-pocket.  Also I am paying for fall classes (two of them) out-of-pocket. You might wonder how in the world am I doing this [...]

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Shopping with a pro!

My friend Christina is a pro at grocery shopping.  She has offered to take me shopping with her several times when I’ve vented about how much it costs to feed my family.  I clip coupons, review the sale papers and try to plan meals in order to save money.  But I still spend more than [...]