Dad taught me how to balance a checkbook when I was a little girl. I was fascinated, watching him work those numbers with that trusty solar-powered calculator from my youth. It didn't hurt that Dad's penmanship is impeccable. The man has skills.
My checkbook ledgers were never as neat, but I did a great job of keeping them balanced. I kept the books for nearly a decade, knowing where every last cent was being spent. A discrepancy of even a penny or two was enough to send me into a flurry of balancing and checking my math. I was pretty meticulous.
Then came online banking, and what I consider to be the downward spiral of my financial accountability. No need to keep a handwritten ledger anymore, I thought, all I have to do is log onto my bank account and oh yeah. It's all there. Nothing amiss.
Little did I realize that although "it's all there," the Internet didn't force me to get up close and personal with my spending habits. Several years later and I finally got up the nerve to crunch some real numbers today. The daily iced coffee I buy for $2.45 is no big deal, right? Riiiight. I'm cringing to admit that this little habit is adding up.
How am I supposed to save money to buy a home in ridiculously expensive Southern California when I can't even admit that I have a very bad Target habit? Is there a program for Target addicts?
In an effort to rehabilitate myself, I'm reading up on budgeting tips and money-saving ideas. Here are a few that sound promising:
Do you have a good system? Any tips for me?
I'm with you..we are trying to buy a home within the next two years, so scrapping together a down payment AND still paying off the last of our debt hangover..and I'm not working. It's kind of overwhelming. I do cash envelopes and the $5 savings plan. I've just realized that yes, I can put big money towards cc bills every month, or make my payments more conservative and stash some down payment cash. I'd rather do that because in 2 years, I want a house.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself to be pretty good at budgeting (after many years of pretending I didn't know where my money was going), and the biggest thing that has helped me is to have money put automatically into savings every paycheck. I built out the budget first and figured out how much I could live without and that amount goes into savings. At one point when we weren't making much money, it was a meager $20 a month. But it was something, and it made me feel good. Now every year I reevaluate the budget and decide how much should be saved every month. Oh, and my second bit of advice would also be to not deprive yourself. If you like those iced coffees, build a reasonable amount of money into the budget for them. I feel like when we deprive ourselves of those simple things it makes it harder to put money away. Savings money is good, but so are iced coffees :)
ReplyDeleteI like that your rationale will enable my coffee habit. Thanks Trish!
ReplyDeleteThat's the toughie, isn't it: Pay off debt now or save for a house now. No easy solution, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteOh I am the world's worst budgeter. But I did give up the coffee habit and we're saving money!! I like iced coffee so I bought a reusable cup with a straw and brew my k-cups every morning. Saving a ton! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI've decided to take advantage of the free coffee at work and only splurge on the weekends. But having coffee in my house at my disposal ... that sounds pretty tempting, too.
ReplyDeleteMy cousin swears by the envelope method, and she's got a computer program so it's not physical envelopes and physical cash money (cash on hand would be too tempting for me to cheat with, I think). I think the idea has promise, but I haven't tried it yet. Our big thing right now is killing our debt, so I'm working out a chart to post somewhere in the house where we will get to mark off payments and physically see the progress instead of just looking online every so often. I think it's gonna be really motivating.
ReplyDeleteOh - and I do office coffee only, too, even though I keep coffee at home. Somehow it's just not as tasty to me. Purely psychological, I'm sure. And I might drink it more if I would fork over for a coffee maker with a timer so I wasn't trying to fumble around with it half asleep. :-)