The Budget

In a previous post I talked about how we were going to start budgeting, and we have. Actually it's gone pretty well. There have been some confusing things about it, just because we are trying to get our envelopes figured out. What I mean by that is, we are having to adjust the actual cash in the envelopes as we go along, and we have to juggle money between two accounts.

I'm using Pearbudget which works really well and is simple to use and the cash envelope system, which also works really well. Basically, I plan our budget for the month in Pearbudget, then I fill the envelopes as we get paid. I leave enough money in our bank accounts to pay the regular bills, like the mortgage, vehicle payments, utilities, credit card and equity lines because we have those set up in our banks web bill pay, which works really well for me. When I get those bills, I just enter them in the bill pay system and set the date to be paid, which is usually the due date. I also enter any other bills, like doctor bills and the water bill and bill pay will send out a check for me. So, I don't have to sit down every month and write out checks for those bills and worry about balancing a check book.

Because I get paid every week and Jeff gets paid every two weeks, and because we have 2 different bank accounts (we kept the ones we had when we got married), we have to do a little juggling of money to fill the envelopes with cash and make sure there is enough money in the one account to cover the bills paid by web bill pay. So, that's what's been taking some getting used to. But, overall I like it.

I like being in control of our money rather than our money being in control of us. AND, since we started this whole budgeting thing (about 2 weeks ago) I've seen God move in our finances already!!! That's the most exciting part. We've had some extra, unexpected, miscellaneous income come in to help us out. Not a lot, but just enough...imagine that. So, I'm actually excited about budgeting and happy to keep doing it!