Financial Suggestions

unplanned purchases are usually the places where we bleed.
Try this:
ONLY spend cash. Get yourself an envelope and keep it in your purse with your cash in it. Everytime you take $ out of the envelope (even if it is $.50 for your kids' ice cream at school) put a receipt in the envelope right then. You can just write on a piece of paper 50¢ if you need to for those ice creams, or for a newspaper or whatever it is. HAVE to have a coffee or coke while you are out and about, and you spend coins?? ... write it down and put the "receipt" in your envelope.
At the end of the pay period or the month, you can pull out all the receipts and see exactly what you spent money on. Was it all necessary? Probably not. So you will know the next pay period/month what to NOT give in and spend on.
Also,
Fast food/drive-thru always ends up costing more than we think it will. So if you can avoid it, do. Make a sandwich at home and take it to work, or send it with your husband. Even buying a frozen dinner and heating it in the micro at work costs a lot less than a fast food meal.

Another thing to consider is that your budget isn't comprehensive enough. Did you list the $ you send to your kids' school for their lunches? Did you include the birthday card for your co-worker? (they can run $4.00 a piece these days). Did you figure in the money you are giving/donating in various places? (church, bell ringers, kids' school fundraisers, 'chipping in' for stuff at work). Did you include your annual expenses that you only pay once, or a few times at some point during the year? (homeowner's dues, school yearbooks, school pictures, Xmas gifts for people not in your family- like teachers, student gift exchanges, etc--, lawn care expenses (fertilizer, etc), newspaper delivery subscriptions, birthday gifts for your kids/spouse, gifts for birthday parties your kids are invited to, tax services, insurances (life/car/home owner's/renter's)...

When you sit down and REALLY write down all your anticipated expenses that occur throughout the course of a year it can be staggering. Did you include dentist visits? Eye glasses/contacts? Prescriptions you or a child need regularly or periodically?

Most people tend to remember all their "regular bills" like car payments, house payments, gas, groceries (food), telephone, cable/satellite, internet, etc. But forget that their grocery bill typically includes prescriptions, minor household or household repair items (tape, paper, school supplies, pens, duct tape, a new broom, a/c filters, cleaners, etc). And forget those "irregular" expenses like the myriad gifts required throughout the year, and doctor's appts and prescriptions, recurring subscriptions to magazines/newspapers, driver's license renewals, car tag renewals, and the like.

Write down. Write down. Write down. And write down again. You will have to sit down and review the budget (or just the list of expenses even) SEVERAL times before you really remember everything.
I happen to KNOW that I have an extra couple of hundred $ to spend in March, every year, b/c that is when my annual life insurance policy premium is paid. Initially, it always surprised me in the spring... and I went "oh no. I forgot that was coming due!" No more.

Dave ramsey!!!!!!!!!!

Google Dave Ramsey. He is great and will help you greatly.

use mint.com. You will see where all the money goes.

usually, the money 'leaks' are in impulsive un-planned purchases or eating out. It all adds up. Even if $2 here and $3 there. Or 'guilty' purchases that you are buying things for someone else... ie: Christmas, because you feel you have to.
At the end of the month, it all accumulates.
Also water/heating bills, or cell phone usage.... which can or cannot be contained.

all the best,
Susan

This is what my husband and I started doing a couple years ago.

1) We have 3 checking & 5 Savings accounts that are linked electronically.

- Deposit account. Where all paychecks and windfall monies gets deposited into and distributed out of.

- Joint Account. Where "extra" money gets put after we portion it out (see below). We each have to check with the other before a single dime gets spent out of it. It goes for things like gas, xmas / bday presents, entertaining, bus pass, etc.

- Mortgage and Billpay account

Savings:
- Mine
- His
- Kiddo's
- OSF (Oh shoot fund... for things like car repairs, home repairs, etc.)
- School

2) When our check(s) deposit we move money into the appropriate accounts -like 1/2 the mortgage payment, expected $ for bills, $50 into kiddo's school account, etc., and pull out the following in cash:

- X amount for groceries / ALL household expenses (in our case 400 every 2 weeks)
- X amount for me ($100)
- X amount for him ($100)
- X amount for Kiddo's allowance ($20)

Whatever is left over we leave in the joint account. When we get paid again whatever money is left in the joint account gets split into our savings accounts.

That $100 per each of us is what we buy ALL of "our" stuff out of, and it's inviolate. No questions asked, no permisson needed from the other, no oversight, zip, nada, zilch. It's ours to do with as we please. It where we buy lunches, haircuts, clothes, pens, books, music, ANYTHING that we want to buy. So if H wants to eat out for lunch every day at work (apx $10 per day) that's all he can do. Or vice versa. If I wanna buy a $150 external harddrive... I have to save for it. If we want to go out to eat, we pay for it out of our personal money -typically split half or dutch-. If I unilaterally decide I'm not cooking and order pizza that comes out of my personal money. If we're sitting around and decide to order pizza... we split it.

I was used to being on a strict budget, but it was a slap in the face for my husband when we switched to using set amounts of cash. He blew through his $100 in under 3 days. Yeah hon. Those "little" purchases add up. It took him months to be able to actually figure out how to stay in budget. But because he couldn't just swipe the card or use credit, he had to learn how to. Same token (no saint am I) I periodically flub the groceries. ESPECIALLY if we have people over. Having people over really shoots my grocery budget in the foot if I'm not very careful.

1. Write down all of your expenses on an annual basis, including insurance premiums, gifts you buy for others, repairs, medical/dental expenses and other items that might not be paid monthly. Use this as a basis for a budget.
2. Be religious about your budget. You can track it on a spreadsheet, in a notebook or on line but write down every thing, every single thing you spend and categorize it into one of your budget items.
3. If it's not in the budget, don't buy it. You can include an amount in the budget for entertainment, for eating out, for clothes, whatever you want as long as you have the income to support it. But if you budget $50 for eating out and you've already spent it this month...go home and eat.
4. Get rid of debt. Debt is the enemy. I mean many people have a mortgage and maybe a car payment, but other than that, just don't have it. Save for what you want and buy it when you can afford to pay cash. If you have debt, figure out how you are going to get rid of it.

You can do it if you take it seriously and there's so much less stress when you know you are living within your means. Good luck!

is your paychecks about the same every week? what I do is I make a list of all our bills on a calender how much they usually cost and what week I will pay them. and I write down these amounts. and add up the weekly amounts then subtract them from how much my husband paycheck will be, this way I know if there will be extra money or not. they extra money gets taken out of the account in cash that way I can't spend over.

You've got to learn to live on less than you make! The two biggest culprits for eating up disposable income are : Credit card payments and car payments. Is that your case? If so, the credit card debt needs to go. If you "earn enough to be ok" and that is including minimum payments on O. or more credit cards, then there is your answer.
A really great book for eliminating debt of ALL kind is Total Money makeover or Financial Peace by Dave Ramsay. It's good, common sense advice for living on less than you make. Imagine that debt was not part of your life. Surely you wouldn't be in the negative numbers then at the end of the month, would you?
I cannot tell you how strongly I advise the Dave Ramsay Plan! It works. No magic. Just eliminating debt.
Even if you don't have credit cards or car payments, (do you?) this will instruct you on the best way to fund your retirement, save for college for your kid(s) and so much more. Either book is worth the reasonable price and you can probably even get O. at the library.
I also like to shop at ALDI to save $ on food, I use couponmom.com to find the best deals in my local supermarket and when to use the coupon for that product. It's free to join.
Another thing that saves me money on groceries is to go to the store with a game plan for meals for that week. I pick 4 or 5 dinners and get all ingredients for the week, plus breakfast and lunch items and stick to the list!
Are you saving every month? You should be. 10% in a savings account right off of the top. Using cash also makes you more aware of what you are spending.
Good luck!

M.,

Do you keep a register for your daily expenses. Knowing where money is going is the first step.

Are you making sure you are getting the best price for what you are buying? Not allow money to be "wasted" can keep more money in your checking account.

One thing I suggest is to have a budget. Know what you are supposed to spent based on your income on each categories of expenses.

Then, are you really making enough money. If you have too much debts, then, it maybe helpful to have another streams of income coming in to offset those expenses. Also, are you taking advantages of all the tax deductions? If you want more specific help. feel free to send me a private message.

Shi Y.

Make a spread sheet of your bills and see what you have left over after all the bills are paid until the next check comes. Decide how much you need for gas and groceries and misc then maybe you will see where it gets spent more clearly.

Writing everything down is always a good idea. If you do not keep your bank register balanced obsessively, start now.

We are also in the paycheck-to-paycheck situation and do not realistically make enough to pay all of our bills and buy groceries and other living necessities, but somehow we're managing. :) For the past 8 weeks (I started out aiming for 4 but went on to 8) I have been keeping an itemized list in a Word document of every single grocery transaction, cash or bank card, and then breaking down purchases by department in the store, quantity, and cost. That has allowed me to see over the course of almost 2 months where our money goes at the grocery (we can see if we're pretty reasonable in some areas or spending too much, buying too much junk, or would be better off finding something cheaper in bulk, etc.). It is also helpful for me to see if groceries are really one of our unreasonable expenses, or if gas is. Keep track of your mileage for a few weeks (my next goal--not sure if my husband will remember) and note where you drive and what for. You will be able to see where you are making extra trips, or overlapping trips (going out again instead of on the way home from work). I think gas is one of our huge expenses, but I also drive about 48 miles a day on a good day just to work and home. The really frustrating thing with finances is sometimes you have to wait out a month or so to really "see" things and then start with a plan.

My husband also has his own checking account with a fixed deposit so he doesn't have to ask me about things since I keep the bank book balanced, and I don't have to feel like a controlling nag. We budget for that and he can use that for whatever (CDs, fast food, stuff you randomly pick up, etc.) and he doesn't have to remember to give me a receipt or call me with the amount. It makes that easier for us. If you find you use cash and it walks away, try either having a fixed cash allowance for you and your husband or having personal checking accounts for that. (My husband also uses his to transfer our gift budget to so I can't see where he's buying me presents, so it works out nicely.)

I also asked for Dave Ramsey's book for Christmas but get ideas from his website.