Organize Money Money Money

MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!

We are not in tax time!!!  Whahoo for tax returns.  It got me thinking, am I over organized with my finances?  I don’t think so.  I am 30 and a significant number of my peers miss manage their money, have no savings, or have significant credit card debit.  It got me thinking that I have pretty good system and as long as I stick to that system, I will keep my finances organized.

Now it goes without saying that I don’t have piles of money, but the mole hill that my husband and I do have is in a tidy box.  My husband and I treat our finances as if we were a business.  We actually truly consider ourselves in business...the business of life.  Standoza for life!!! hehehe  In treating our home financials as if it were a business we have a great understanding of how much money we have.  We know our numbers.  

To keep it all organized, we have a working spreadsheet that depicts our income and outgo.  Additionally, we break our month into two.  In these two halfs of the month we pay all bills on one day.  This keeps control on our outgo.  Slowly dripping money out of our account through the month doesn’t show us what we will or wont be able to afford.  We broke our bills into the first half of the month and the second half of the month.  This also keeps out finances balanced.  If lopsided we are able to get with one of our “vendors” and switch the payment schedule.  Again that adds to a balanced and controlled outgo.  One of the final additional benefits of the worksheet is the “check box” each “vendor” gets.  Checking off bill paid, keeps us from forgetting to pay a bill and becoming subject to late fees.

With the control over the outgo, we can coordinate payments with our income which is also tracked in the worksheet.  With some simple math in the worksheet I am able to see what is left, if anything, at the end of the half or at the end of the month.  That is how we decide if there is money left for us to have some fun or save for something fun!!  (ps we always put money into savings right off the top)

Pretty simple.  There are probably others out there doing something similar or something better.  I would love to hear about it!!