Creating a budget

[Anonymous]

www.mint.com

offers a way to start budgeting- you enter your credit cards and bank accounts, and it downloads and categorizes the transactions (kind of like Quicken, et. al., but free, and I find it much easier).  After a couple months of history, you'll see patterns and areas to trim (dear gosh, did we really spend $800 on fast food last month?!  Okay, time to break out the mac-and-cheez...)

You can also make rough budgets, and it will track it through the month- if you have budgeted $350/mo. for gas, but have spent $200 in the first week of the month, the graph will change color to warn you.

[Anonymous]

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George2037 wrote:

"DON'T DO ANYTHING"

haha, funny you said that.  I went out and spent $500 on an XBOX 360 and just sit home playing it and watching movies.  I figure I've saved $100 a weekend by staying home, and not to mention the beer is cheaper and safer (DWI's are expensive) to drink at home

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Yeah that probably would be better but I stopped playing video games when I turned 14 (no offense ... just so happened). Now I just read that book that I bought that I never opened or watch that DVD that I rented through BlockBuster Total Access that I never had time to see. Worst case scenario, I drive to the movie theaters ~$5 gas round trip, its a crappy theater but has all the new movies so its a $3.25 ticket and I buy a $3.50 cup o' coke. GF lives in another state so I go solo. That's 11.75 a day. Even if I did that twice a week for a month($94), I couldn't save $100 a MONTH by skipping out. Darn close though. I typically go once a week if that.

Wow MsMs ... how did you find Mint, it looks amazing. I am just a little skeptical at the fact I can sign up and only give them my email address. How do they get access to my accounts then. I mean, I'm sure there is more to the sign up but would like the full story before attempting it. Is it all online (no programs)? I like my Excel sheet because I can update my bills at work. This might be something for me to consider. Does it have a way of tracking what you paid on a bill. I mean, if my credit card shows a payment of $50 and my bank account shows a debit in the amount of $50 to the same credit card company does it link these two to show they are related? Alot of questions. That's what makes me scared to try.

Message Edited by berraco58 on 12-10-2007 01:40 PM

[Anonymous]

I have a TC account, a myFICO account, a Prosper lender account, I have online accounts for all of my credit cards, student loans, my bank account, my auto loan account, my cable and probably one more I can't think about. That is a lot of places for my personal information hanging around. At first it was no big thing but then I started counting all of the places online where I had personal information and it scared me a little. I'm very hesitant to open up anymore online accounts that have my personal information unless I am actively engaged in business with the company.

[fishbjc]

The extent of our outings consist of $4 movies which include popcorn & I take my own diet pepsi.  Beef O'Brady's has 1/2 price burgers on Wednesdays...our local club sells wine for 2.25 glass and beer 1.75 or 2.25.  Other than that....this Friday is my first all-out outing in 4 months!

Tivo is usually my 'date' these days.

[SmartCookie]

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fishbjc wrote:

The extent of our outings consist of $4 movies which include popcorn & I take my own diet pepsi.  Beef O'Brady's has 1/2 price burgers on Wednesdays...our local club sells wine for 2.25 glass and beer 1.75 or 2.25.  Other than that....this Friday is my first all-out outing in 4 months!

Tivo is usually my 'date' these days.

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I love my TiVO.  DH is very jealous...

[Anonymous]

Oh my.... I don't remember how I found this site, but I am so glad I did.  Thank you for all your information on this topic!  I'll be looking into this and find which best suits me!

[Gigi77]

Mint.com seems somewhat scary, but from all the positive online reviews and mentions from reputable sources: NYT, WSJ, BW, etc, I think I may try it... but will do a bit more digging first. I'm particularly cautious right now. My friend just discovered her BOA debit card was duplicated and pin somehow swiped and used at several ATMs in MALAYSIA! I couldn't believe it when she said told me, but I heard the convo with the BOA reps.. very scary stuff.

Thanks for the link though, there are a few the links I discovered from the "reviews" page that are really useful as well...

gigi

[Anonymous]

There are a number of great online tools now that help you budget. Mint.com is one of them, and the good thing is they let you compare your spending to other people's in certain categories (for example, am I spending more on food or entertainment than other people?). However, they don't yet allow you to manually enter cash purchases so that leaves out a good chunk of many people's budgets. I would guess that enhancement is coming soon. Here's an article I wrote on the topic with a link to other online tools: http://www.credit.com/credit_information/money_management/Three-Ways-to-Put-Your-Budget-on-Auto-Pilot.jsp Yodlee is probably still the most robust and is well-tested in the marketplace. The other thing you'll want to check is whether your bank or credit union offers a similar tool. Many work with Yodlee or other service providers, for example, and that may be offered for free by your financial institution. They may even help you set it up! (Mint uses Yodlee for their account aggregation piece so they are good security-wise too.) Another great program is Mvelopes, although it's not free it is very robust. You figure out how much you have to spend in your budget categories and it keeps a running balance so you can see how much is "left" each month. If you haven't planned well, you can borrow from other categories, or readjust. Any of these programs take some time to set up but once you get them set up they can be a real time and money-saver. And if none of these work, the cash/envelope method Dave Ramsey advocates can also work! And a word of caution: it may take you a while to get one of these methods set up and working for you. Don't beat yourself up if the first time doesn't "take." If you really can't get it going after a few tries, think about a financial coach (financialrecovery.com is a great resource). Just like weight loss and other hard-to-change habits, sometimes there are other issues behind our spending habits that need to be addressed. Hope this doesn't sound like preaching...it's always a challenge for me like anyone else!!

[Anonymous]

Like George, I work off Excel spreadsheets.  I run them about 12 months foreward and make sure I don't see any negative numbers in the ballance column.  One sheet (and thus, one checking account) has fixed expenses.  This year, my credits will be > debits by $62.  That's okay.

Another sheet is for savings, and although that's a new concept for me, I haven't dipped in since it started-- last March.  It helps to have a goal on that one.  Mine's a house down payment of $33,000 and I'm on track.

The third account/sheet is for everything else.  What works for me is gassing up the truck, and hitting the atm every Sunday.  I tried the debit card concept, but it's less book keeping if you can handle cash.

Budgeting is actually fun, in a way.  There have actually been some periods where I had extra cash come Sunday, which I stashed in a drawer.  It's satisfying knowing it's there.

[Anonymous]

This looks like a good site but it scares me to have all my info in one spot! Right now I do online banking. Chances are if someone hacks in, they will only get 1 account. If someone hacks into mint.com they would get everything!

IO use quickbooks for my business. I do not have time to enter all this information for my personal too. It takes hours per week to use.