Can you tell I am totally avoiding cleaning the house and working on our grocery list? I am. Oh well, the dishes will wait for me. One of the things I have been meaning to blog about lately is our budget. Mostly because I am proud of the fact that we have now successfully followed a budget for two whole months! Santi and I have tried for the past couple of years to create a monthly budget and really stick to it, but it wasn't until recently that we really had any success. We read Dave Ramsey, tried creating budgets in Excel, mint.com, etc. but just couldn't find something that worked for us and kept us organized. We save receipts and everything...no luck. We even had Sunday evening budget meetings every week to discuss the week's spending and upcoming expenses.
In February someone told me about a budgeting tool called "You Need a Budget" (www.ynab.com)
We hesitantly purchased the download hoping it would work and not be a total waste of money. It was the first time we had spent money on actual budgeting software rather than trying to create our own or use the freebies. It was well worth it! At first it's a little tricky, and Santi didn't want to follow or read directions (as usual) and we tried to budget out the whole month at once, which is why we had been unsuccessful in the past. Finally I just told him to hand over the reins and let me take care of it. So now, he actually pays the bills (since he works at the bank and it's easy for him) and I just keep track of the bottom line. Every two weeks when we get a paycheck, I only budget that amount, and I only budget two weeks at a time rather than the whole month. That way, when things come up mid month it's easier to work them in. Plus, this software allows the budget to be continuously tweaked as needed. If you are under budget in one category and over in another mid-month, it's really easy to rework things. We have done much better managing our money the last two months, even with some unexpected expenses, and we have been able to add some extra money to my "maternity leave" account, which is what we will live off of when I am out of work for 12 weeks (which I am thrilled about) taking care of Luca. I love the way this budget works, and I actually enjoy sitting down to work on it, which I now do every couple of days rather than once a week (much easier to keep up with). It's much easier and enjoyable to shop for groceries or other needs when you know exactly how much you have to spend instead of getting home from a shopping trip and realizing you went over and have to dip into your emergency fund (yes, we did that often). So, as I sit down about to work on our budget and plan our menu for the week (which is also key to saving money at the grocery store), I just thought I would share with my blogging friends how much I love our new budget system!
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