How do you manage your finances? - Need help

MomToMany wrote: Ugh, there are so many bills, and 2 checking accounts. I have a hard time keeping it all straight, and which bills are due when. What does everyone do to keep it all organized? I'd like to look at a glance how much money we have at any time.

Please help me !

~KARA~ replied: I keep a budget. I have a note book just for bills. I write each payday down and automaticly write down the bills that are due exact same day each month, Car house, dh truck, dh motercycle and car ins. Then I fit all teh lil bill in where they will fit. It took a while for us to get on track with it but it had been to the point where my dh was paying bills and leaving 50$ to get food and gas for both cars. It wasnt working!!


GOod luck

coasterqueen replied: Well I'm taking care of it while DH is away but he uses this checkbook program that sets up events, forecasts, so you can see what you will have in your checkbook every month for a year or even more. Like on Oct 20 I'm going to be -$68 if I don't figure something out. I was so happier when DH did this and can't wait til he gets back. His program is much better then when I did it all out on paper for sure.

kimberley replied: i do all my banking online so i have access to account balances and "pay bills" anytime. i also get a lot of E-bills so i keep them in one folder on my computer and my calendar in yahoo mail can be set up to send reminders for which date it needs to be paid by. do you pay certain bills from certain accounts? do you have filing trays? most bills come due the same day/week every month so you can make a list of what comes up and write the due balances in when the bills come.

TANNER'S MOM replied: Well, I use on line banking.. and I do a very none perfect thing that works great for my family..

I have a large dry erase calender on my fridge . When I get a bill... its amount and due date go on there so I can see what needs to be paid and it helps me from being late..lol
I know what we make every week.. and I keep a running total.. I can see it there and so can Dh..

If I have company I just take it down until they leave..lol

kit_kats_mom replied: We use quicken 2005. I like the automatic download feature which I have set to download all of the transactions from the previous 24 hours for every account we have. That way I just check them in the morning, accept them all and have my balances. Handy dandy

My3LilMonkeys replied: I created my own budget/checkbook balancing/bill register in Excel (I'm too cheap to pay for professional software and good with Excel, so the little bit of extra work it takes is ok with me). I keep it updated from our online bank statements and all bills coming in twice a week and every payday I sit down with DH and we budget exactly where all of our money will go. This is a necessity for us because money is very tight and DH loves to spend it!

If you are interested I can send you a sample of the spreadsheets I use - they are easy to understand if you are familiar with excel.

MomToMany replied: I like the idea of the notebook/calendar. I don't know Excel. We have on-line banking too. I guess I just don't know how I should keep track of everything. We have automatic payments taken out of our joint account. My paychecks also vary month-to-month, so we can never really know for sure how much we have, or predict what next month's will be. We have 3 credit cards that are almost maxed out, so if something unexpected came up, we'd be in a world of hurt.

I can't understand how it got this bad. We need to do something, and quick!

amynicole21 replied: I love Quicken - it's very helpful and shows you trends and where you might save money. You can also set it up to remind you of when monthly bills are due - ours pops up 10 days before each bill is due.

We also use online banking, but I don't set anything up to automatically deduct because some months we have to get *creative* with when bills get paid.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Yikes.... we need to as well.

We have 4 bank accounts between us....

we have 6 credit cards between us, plus one for the Brick, Sears, the Bay

we get paid our salaries - and I manage a lot of the bills from my accounts - DH manages some on his accounts...

all in all, we pay the ones that are automatic out of our accounts directly - we just make sure to always have money for those. Other bills, sometimes we are behind on them - but since they`re mostely credit payments, we just pay half at the biginning of the month (or end) and the other half in the middle of the month.

So instead of paying 100$ in one chunk - we pay 50, and 50 again. Or we each do 25, then 25 - it adds up tot the same.

We dont`pay the same amounts for the bills - I take care of way more of them than he does (car, insurance, loan payments) which come to about 1100$ a month, plus I pay small amounts of the bills, about 300$ worth every month.

He pays about 800$ a month in bills - but he also pays the gas.

We try to put aside 50$ each every month - if we can put more, we put more - but we usually have a little cash in the bank for emergencies, or for when we`re really strapped for a bill - we usually keep around 500$...then we have to build it (money saved) all over again.

We`re doing well financially - we`re not really broke - I like to make my accounts look like we`re broke though (hence the 2nd account) so that I`m not tempted to spend.

Like the 358$ we spent at Walmart last night. (or that *I* spent...... )

mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied:
Just a suggestion. You may try consolidating all three credit cards into one. And pick the one with the lowest APR. You'll probably save a little there as long as you're paying off a large chunk of the balance each month, if not full. DH does our finances, but we have online banking and I can always get online and see what we have at any given time. I think he uses Quiken as well. I'm the one that does all the grocery shopping, so I'm good at budgeting what we need per week. I take cash out to pay for everything. Nothing every goes on a credit card unless an emergency.

My2Beauties replied:
He he that is why I don't let anything come out automatically - I love grace periods!

You know I don't have a formal method of computing my bills I use my head, but I need to buy Microsoft Money or Quicken or something, because I get messed up sometimes! I really do need to buy something. Cary is Quicken expensive?

MomToMany replied: Thanks for the replies. I am setting everything up in Microsoft Money right now. I think it would be easier than trying to figure it out on paper.

I hope this keeps us on track. I'm just tired of guessing at how much money we have.