Budget redux

Time to start cranking more savings.
Talk to me about the envelope budgeting...especially how to get a spouse to control spending when they can still just flash plastic...

 

Freeze the credit cards in a block of ice.

 

Reloadable credit cards

 

Here's how we've done it for about 10 years, may or may not be a good plan for everyone.

Everything is budgeted - as much as possible.

We have budgets for:

Groceries
Utilities
Babysitters
Home needs
Pets
Maids
Medical
Kid Activities
Educational items
Charity
Haircuts
Christmas
Gifts for kids friends ( lots of bday parties )
Yardwork
Prop Taxes
Home insurance
mortgage
investments
"Mad money" for personal spending
there's a few more....

The list and the amount for each item change, usually semi-annually as needs change.

Some of the above is maintained in cash (envelopes ), some is accrued in an account that is in my name. This is easier for me to have b/c we are single income. She has her own account, budget items that she manages go into that account.

Any dining not done together comes from mad money. This is mainly for lunches for us / kids / babysitters / takeout. We don't really budget us dining out anymore because we don't get out enough for it to be a spending issue. If we do takeout together, that's not mad money.

Basically, all the bullshit comes from mad money. We are rather protective over it, and often new budget categories come up b/c we're spending mad money on stuff that should be budgeted.

Anyway - that's how we do it. It takes 2 people. If my wife wasn't game, it wouldn't work. Managing a budget using plastic can be tough. When the envelope is empty, it's empty. When it's full, it's full. No need to ever reconcile or balance.

 

My wife and I do envelopes for everything that we leave the house to buy with one exception: Gas (Costco only takes debit cards so we do put Gas on Debit cards). Otherwise, if it is something that we have to leave our house for, we have cash for it. It cut down our spending big time doing this plan. Each time I get paid, I go to the bank and pull cash out for the envelopes (typically Dining Out, Groceries, Costco, Lowe's, etc.). If there isn't any cash in that envelope, then there isn't any buying. Helped the wife and I communicate better and I never have to wonder where our money went.

 

I just go out and make more $

 

My wife is actually pretty good at not spending too much money. Basically I pay all the bills and we save her entire paycheck, well most of it anyway. Getting a little tougher to do with daycare now though. We discuss any big ticket items and respect each other's decision, most of the time. For example, it be kinda neet to both drive BMWs but with a paid off Accord, why bother?.

 

I pay all of the bills and my wife gives me a portion of her check each time she is paid to cover "her share". The problem comes in when she can not make it off what she has left. She has to buy her own gasoline and groceries for the household off what she has left and she can not seem to get that done.

We used to split them up and she paid some bills and I paid other but hers were constantly getting paid late and hurting my credit (everything is in my name).

 

My husband is crazily anal about Quicken - it automatically downloads all of our bank transactions from our online statement into the program, and he sets different categories for different budgets.

I don't know everything he does - he gets pretty indepth, but he says it helps him to see where all of the money that we spend goes. It also keeps track of our credit cards and savings accounts.

 

I'll just bet he is.