Titus 2 Tea - Budgets - Week Three

This will be my last post for budgets.  For one thing, I'm not sure what else I would say after today.  We have come to the end of my experience with budgets and two, next Friday, I want to think about the death of our Lord - not budgets.

My final ideas about budgeting are: 

Save your receipts.  I put them in my purse, and when I see that hubby has one, I scoop it up and drop it in my purse.  Everything goes in the purse.

Clean out your purse on a weekly basis.  I put it in my purse so that I can find it on the day when I empty out my purse.  Once a week, Thursday, I take everything out of my purse. (Okay, realistically, that is the plan.)  Then I only put back what should be in my purse and everything else goes where it should. The receipts go into a pile next to my computer.

Go through the receipts.  Decide what categories the items go under.  In other words, my receipts to the grocery store, are mostly always food.  But to Wal-mart, the items go under several categories (clothes, toiletries, food, medical, etc)

Enter your data into the computer program you're using.  Or if you're using pencil and paper, take this time to enter your data.  Ideally, we should only be spending what we have, which is why cash is recommended.  I, honestly, don't know if Dave Ramsey recommends this, because I haven't been through his program.  If you are only using cash, you'll know that when your envelope is empty, you can't buy more. 

Check on-line to see what your balance is in your bank and on your credit card.  If you don't have self-control with the credit card, leave it at home and don't use it.  Carpenter wants to keep it, so I'm following his lead.  But this is a way that I keep tabs on where we are at. 

I haven't set up the cash system yet, but when I do my plan is to put cash into an envelope marked credit card and then put money into it from the other envelopes as we use the card.  For example: if we use the credit card for gas, we'll take cash out of the gas envelope and put it in the credit card envelope.  Then when the bill comes due, we'll put the cash into the bank. 

Sounds like a lot of hassle, but it takes vigilance to keep on your toes about where your money is going or you'll be using more than you have.  O.k. that's if you're me.  Jeff has family members who could keep track of where they were at financially in their head.  I can't.

Make sure that your balances are right.   So check your cash, checking and savings balance, to see if it all matches with what your entries say.

Any income that has come in this week should be noted and allocated to where it goes. 

Making the most of today,
Steph