Budgeting Help!

[Kaylene]

i am new here so I am not sure if this is the right place to post this but my husband and I are searching for a good computer program for household budgeting. I am staying at home now and have cut my income in half. We have run all the figures on paper and we know it will be tight so we are looking for some help tracking that and the only programs I know are ones I use to use at work and they are much bigger than we need and set up for office use not home use. Do any of you know of anything like that?

[Mickey]

Welcome, Kaylene!

We use Quicken. You can set it up with your bank to pay bills electronically. You can also set up catagories (and catagorize your receipts) and see a pie chart of where you are spending the most--that could help to see where you might be able to cut back.

I like the program, but I've never used anything else, so I couldn't tell you how it compares to others.

[lindaM]

Hi!!!

We had Money98 on the old computer I liked that one. Our new computer has Quicken dh just finished this weekend imputting all the info. They both seem pretty much the same.

DH and I had to cut back also. He got a promotion at work and makes less money. Huh??? how did that happen??? Anyway, this is what we have done and we are actually putting alot of money in savings now.

We figured out how much we need to live each week, with groceries, gas, prescriptions (which is big here with 3 asthmatics), household expense and give each other $20.00 in free cash a week (soda money for dh and book store money for me). We start a running total of $335.00 and every time we spend something we record it. That way we each know what is left. And if we have extra at the end of the week it goes to savings. This realy works for us. And like I said we put alot in savings now. Before we just spend spend spend.

Good Luck!!!

[angie r]

We also use Quicken.

[RCT]

we have Quicken and I think its installed....:lol: ok, I got another question....how did you actually tally up what you Need at the super market...what you Need monthly for others.....I can figure out all my monthly bills....but have a problem with food, and other expenses...how did you budget them....total all the recipts for the supermarket for the prior month? sorry i sound so stupid.....Linda M....we are in serious debt and want to start plugging more into those bills and savings....any infor or advice is welcome...:D

[lindaM]

Hi we have a notebook that we keep in the kitchen every week we start with $335.00 and everytime we spend money we deduct from the notebook and write what it was for, (food, gas, household exp, rx's, misc.) We kept track for a few weeks before we assigned the $335.00 so we would know the ballpark number.

To give you an idea this is our amounts:
Food $100
Gas $60 dh comutes with his gas eating truck
rx's $20
mike & linda free money $40
Cleaning supplies $10
Household misc. $25.00 (video's or pizza)
Misc. $80.00 House stuff
Total 335.00

It sounds time consuming and at the beginning we had to remind each other a lot. But now it is easy and dh is a lot less stressed when it comes to paying bills now that he knows the money will be there. The one I find hard to stay with is the food. But some weeks I'll spend $60.00 and others it is $130.00 so I even out in my head.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[RCT]

wow Linda...thanks....we have one of those dry erase boards in the kitchen that would be a perfect place to start this kind of tracking system....I appreciate your input...:D

[netmechwife]

We use Quicken. What really helped us get better at budgeting on one income was reading some of Larry Burkett's books on money management and budgeting. He is an excellent financial teacher. You may try to find some of his books at your local library. I know they made a difference in our finances.