I have all of the faith in the world in you, Sam!

Glad you are addng the non-regulars because they come up and bite you in the tush causing you to have to put off other bills if you don't plan for them. I just got my DMV renewal for Jane Honda due November 14th - $115. If I pay in December it will cost $183! Yikes! $68 bucks for a late fee is literally highway robbery. I need to budget in a smog check in October too so it is time to look for the coupons in the junk mailers. Post-it note!

Thanks, Heidi!

I've been going to the store daily, it seems, to pick up something or another. I spend a lot of money doing that. I didn't follow the Menu Mailer this past week, so I have had to figure out every meal as it comes along. I don't like having to do that. I'm going to use the MM when it's available this Thursday. I like knowing what's planned for meals, but I don't like to do the planning. So MM really helps me to save money (keeps me out of the store every day) and it frees up a lot of time for me too.

I've decided that I'm going to tackle receipts just once a week on Desk Day. I've been pushing myself to take care of it every day and that puts too much pressure on me. I basically know where I am from week to week and I should be able to handle the finances this way. I'll have to see how it goes.

I really need to sit down with my calendar and plan out the meals each week and also allow for any outside activities that involve food. That way I won't be going to the store so frequently and spending money I don't have in the budget.

Speaking of budgets, I have not been sticking to mine. For some reason the Labor Day holiday has really thrown me off. I'm hoping to get back on track starting today. It's hard to budget for gas and groceries though when I don't really know how much I spend each week/month. I know I need to keep tabs on that for a while.

I'd like to go to using cash instead of the debit card all the time, but it's been rough transitioning to cash. I need to note when the paychecks get deposited, when the bills are due and then how much is left over for groceries and gas on the calendar. I'm a visual learner and I think it would help to write it down. My calendar is going to be my new best friend.

Cant you look back on your previous statements and tally up your gas usage? You need to allow adaquate funds for gas to get to and from where you need to go honey!

As for bills. Get them out. WRite down each payee and how much and the date. I find it best to have it all on ONE piece of paper ---looking right back atcha. If you pay online (bills) you can normally look back at the history of your payments over the last year or so.. so you can get an average of how much you need monthly. I have to take into consideration down here, that our summer electric bills are gonna skyrocket.. and plan for that.

The holiday always throws people off cuz we tend to cook more, eat more, maybe drink more, and maybe play a lil more (recreational expenses)... so dont beat yourself up.

You can do this. Don't make it too hard... you CAN do it!
Rhonda

Here's an update on what's going on with FACEing my finances:

I've had to figure where all our money has gone for the past two years so I'm able to figure out what I've spent on gas and groceries.

I do have an excel spreadsheet listing all my debts and income. It is very helpful to have it on one sheet, I agree.

We met with a financial advisor yesterday and he asked us to track ALL of our expenses for the last 2 years - YES! 2 years! Thankfully I have saved all my check duplicates (hadn't shredded those yet, thankfully). And I have all of my statements for the last two years online with my credit union. I took advantage of Anti-procrastination day yesterday and tracked all of the checks for the past 2 years. I'm shocked at how much we spent on various categories. I also had to document everything I've sold in the past year (we had a house up in the mountains where we had lots of equipment solely used up there and we sold it all when we moved back to the city). I was up until 1:30am (very late for me) working on the excel spreadsheet documenting all of this stuff. I still have to track the debit card expenses and that will take days.

I'm actually having fun putting all of this together. I love doing stuff like this. And it's really helping me to FACE my finances straight on. I'm sure that it will help me develop a better budget than I have right now. I don't recommend that everyone do this (2 years worth of tracking) but I think tracking a month or three would really open up your eyes. It's amazing to see where all the money goes. I realize that I make a lot of impulse purchases that really have added up over the years. I could have been keeping track of all of this with a computer program, but I 'didn't have time' to do that. Now I have to make the time. I think going forward I will consider using Quicken or MS Money to document this type of information. That way I won't find myself in this position again.

I don't think there's a way to come up with a realistic budget if I don't know what I've been spending on in the past. So all of this has, in a surprising way, been extremely helpful to me. I honestly wouldn't have done all of this tracking if I wasn't asked to. I would have thought (as usual) that it would take too much time that I didn't have to give. As it turns out, it's going a lot faster than I thought it would. I do have a deadline, so it has to get done pretty quick. I'm still trying to work 15 minutes at a time and I'm taking breaks every hour. I think that's how I've been able to get through all that I have. I know that if I feel done after 15 minutes, I can be done for that session and pick it up again later.

I'm also trying to be proactive with current income and bills by using my FlyLady calendar to track when money comes in and when money needs to go out. I'm a visual learner, so seeing it on the calendar is very helpful to me. And I'll look into an online tracking system today. Now that I know how important it is, maybe I can keep it going day to day.

So I'm learning a lot about our finances and where we stand. It's a good thing.

Sam, I know it sounds crazy but entering your expenses into financial softwarwe and running all of those little reports is FUN. You know how the gas or electric bill shows that tiny bar graph of last year compared to this year and you ALWAYS have to look? It is like that but you can see anything with a click.

Have fun, GF! At tax time you will spend a whole 5 minutes printing reports, grabbing your receipt folder and you are good to go.

Hey Heidi,

I think you're right. After doing the financal work I needed to do this week, I've realized that I love doing a project as long as I'm using some kind of software on the laptop. And I do look at that little bar graph (hey, how did you know ). The idea of being able to chart stuff makes me feel all giddy inside (yes, I know, I need to get a life ). I've been having trouble transitioning to the wall calendar because an online calendar is so much more fun for me. But I like the idea of the wall calendar so DH knows what's going on too. I guess I could take time to print out the online calendar so he'd know what's up.

I would definitely be prepared for tax time if I kept everything in financial software.

I'll have to give all of this some thought and decide which path I am going to take. Thanks for the encouragment though.

I've decided on keeping the FlyLady wall calendar. Because I'm a visual learner, having the calendar in my face during the day is more helpful to me. I also have decided that putting the finances in Microsoft Money works for me. If I keep up with it daily, I don't have to keep track in a separate check book. However, I am putting the paydays and bills on the calendar so I can see when money comes in and when money needs to go out. I'm paying the bills online so that makes it much easier to get the bills out. Putting them in the online bill paying system ahead of time had been getting me a bit confused, but now that I'm putting the info on the calendar, it's much easier. So I think I'm going to stick with the wall calendar and Microsoft Money. And I like being able to see from month to month what expense categories have increased or decreased. This past month our spending on eating out has dropped 42% from the previous month (thanks to the Body Clutter adventure I"m on). It was nice to see it in writing.

FACEing the finances has made me feel empowered and less out of control. I like being on top of the finances. I may not thave the money I'd like to have (who does) but at least I know where I am with the finances at any given moment. I can see that NSF worries will be a thing of the past.

I guess I spoke to soon. I checked my account balance online and it showed that the amount available was in the negative! I guess I need to revise my calendar idea, and quickly. I realized that I messed up by using my debit card when I shouldn't have. I also didn't track what I was spending (except in my head ). That always gets me into trouble. I'm always pushing things to the limit financially and I've got to stop doing that. Oh, well, back to the drawing board (or shall I say, the calendar).

I redid the finances on the calendar in a way that now makes more sense. I updated my online account in Money and everything came out right. I actually didn't go into the negative because I made a deposit (instead of sitting on my franny). So everything is working out okay today. I even worked on putting my budget into Money. Interesting to see what I'm spending that I didn't budget to spend.

I think you are doing a GREAT job sorting out what will work for you. There will be tweeks of course.

IMO, it isn't the tools that are goofing you up - it is the plastic! They have credit cards now that you refill like phone cards. You can get them at most stores and load them up - or so the commercial says. This might be a great thing for you Sam so you can pay yourself by filling the card according to your budget. When it is gone it is gone without messing up the family funds or schedule. Cafe money...woohoo!

Hi, Chris from Australia here.
Was reading about soaring electric bills in one of the messages. I don't know how often you pay them in the US, but here it's three monthly. I have what is called a bill equalizer. Which means the electric company takes my last 12 months of bills and divides by 12. Then they direct debit that amount each month. You always know how much you will pay and you don't need to worry about the bill. At the end of every 12 month period they re-assess your usage and set a new amount if necessary. I'm on a pension and it works for me

Heidi: I think you are right. The plastic has been my downfall. I like being able to track all expenses online and in Money by using the debit card but there's always that temptation to spend because I do have the debit card. I know I need to be very careful with the DC.

Chris: Thanks for the reminder. We have something here called budget billing where they do the same thing (average it over 12 months). I've been meaning to call and get on the budget billing but keep forgetting. I'll call tomorrow and take care of that.

I've been hanging out over at the daveramsey.com site lately. I've decided to add Dave's plan to Marla' and Leanne's and see where things go financially. DH and I sat down and made a budget this weekend. It's the first time that we have worked on it together. It turned out to be fun and informational. I think he really gets the finances now.

I'm still having trouble tracking (like a check register type thing). I tried doing it in Microsoft Money but that didn't work for me. I think I'm making this too difficult. I think I should just use a regular check register that you get with a box of checks, shouldn't I? Guess I'll try that next.

I've been totally obsessed with finances lately. Isn't that what SHE's do best is become so totally focused on something that it takes over her life until she crashes and burns. I've made some good steps (a budget, DH and I on the same page and bills up to date) but I have got caught up in 'the perfect budget'. I'm trying to apply FlyLady principles to finances too and get myself off this ride.

I've been using Quicken to track the bank account and that seems to be working for me. There's a cool calendar in Quicken that helps show where money comes in and where the bills go out and each day there is a balance. That helps keep me up to date easier. So I've made progress there. Still working on all the unexpected expenses that come up every week and adding them into the budget.

All of those unexpected bills become more expected in time because you will see a cycle emerging on Quicken. If you find that you have $xxx a month in stuff that "just happens" then you can make room for it in the budget. Seems like $25 a week covers the Opps! moments around here. Like, our weekly food, gas and whatever budget is $200. So, I stash any extra away for times like now where my oil filter fizzles out.