$ Weekly Everything Money Check-In $

momofcatan

Welcome to the Budgeting/Saving/Everything Money check-in. This is a personal topic, feel free to give dollar amounts or not, or to skip any questions you do not want to answer.

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? How close are you to completing it?

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of?

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone.

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving?

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group?

GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect.

momofcatan

I am way too excited to host this check-in, please feel free to give my any advice to make it better.

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? How close are you to completing it? $20/month to vacation savings and $30/month to home improvement savings. I don't have a total goal for these, just building up the savings so that the money is there when we want/need it. I am also struggling to stick to our grocery budget lately. So far only spent $284/$600 so hoping I can stay on track this month.

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of? I'm going to apply to 2 jobs this week. I feel like we have cut down our variable costs as best we can and we need to work on increasing income next. I'm so nervous about switching jobs, but I need to at least start applying.

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone. Pick your priorities. Budgeting doesn't mean limiting everything, it means to save money where you can so you can enjoy the things you love.

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving? Mint.com

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group? I get to use all mine as the GTKY questions :-h

GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect. I love the Peaceful Mom, especially her living on less than $28,000 a year series https://thepeacefulmom.com/living-on-less-than-28000-a-year-series/ It really showed me that everything you spend money on is a choice and YOU get to pick the priorities.

kh59

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? How close are you to completing it? My husband and I are focusing on paying off our student loans.  I think we could make it in about 4 years if we work at it.

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of? I'm drinking coffee made from a little French press I'm keeping in my office rather than buying it at a cafe. 

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone. Plan meals to save on groceries.  I swore for years that it was too much of a hassle, but once I started doing it, I realized that I save both time and money.

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving? Mint

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group? What fun free or cheap toddler/family activities do you enjoy or recommend?  Everyone's happier when we get out of the house more, but I could always use ideas of what to do that doesn't cost a ton of money.

GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect. I'm a https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ fan.

momofcatan

@kh59 I've read a bit of Mr. Money Mustache and really liked it.

momofcatan

@kh59 you can check out this podcast https://moneymastermindshow.com/episode3/
at around minute 28 they start talking about free/cheap kids activities.

@daffy2k @ColieAnn31 @Lizzybizzy80 @GernaphobE @babygsmommy (yay for being able to tag you!) @Cricket81 @HellesBelles13 Come out and play with me? :-B

Lizzybizzy80

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? We put away about 30% of our pre-tax income monthly into savings and retirement. That amount is split between a 401k, two IRAs, a brokerage account and a Capital One 360 acct. The other 70% goes to everything else, including taxes and insurance. Six years ago we weren't saving much at all so this was a big change.

How close are you to completing it? Ongoing. We hope to both retire by 60 or 65 and maybe allow one of us to take a year off here or there or work part time.

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of? We are going to be spending some money this week to go on vacation but it is our first plane trip in two years and I'm really looking forward to it. As of now we are within our budget for everything but B and that's great. He needed 18 mo clothes and diaper creams and I wanted to get him mega blocks.

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone. Set up transfers to savings to happen monthly and automatically.

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving? Mint.com and an excel spreadsheet that I work on monthly.

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group? Do you know of a great retirement calculator online? I tried one yesterday and it said we needed to save like three times the goal that mint had us at.

GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect. I'm reading Suze Orman's Money Class. I used to like seeing her on Oprah.

ColieAnn31

I'll contribute later this evening. I'm at work right now.

Lizzybizzy80

@kh59‌ my go to places are the library, park/playground and a splash pad park. I need some new ideas too

daffy2k

I'll contribute during M's next nap. We are going to go out and enjoy the gorgeous weather before it's all gone!! (We had snow last week so I know the end is near )

needanustart

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? How close are you to completing it?

We are a bit in flux right now but we just paid off DH's student loans and our car. We are down to our mortgage and my student loan. My loan is small and a 2.4% rate though so I'm not really in a hurry on that one. I'm not sure what our current goal is right now but we wanted to start contributing monthly to the boy's 529s and we just started this month, so that's a good start!

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of?

Although we have just had a little boost of help we are sticking with our current frugal lifestyle to spend more money on travel and home improvement. This week I did my every few months CVS and Kohl's stock up using coupons/bonuses and bogo deals and I saved us over $100 on things we needed! DH is always amazed at my CVS strategy and I'm so proud of that receipt!

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone.

In terms of saving money on kids stuff it is almost always WAY cheaper to get memberships to some places, like museums and activity centers. I get a few local memberships and take advantage of field trips a lot.

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving? Excel spreadsheet right now. But now I'm feeling forum peer pressure to try mint... First fitbit now this!

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group? I think I asked it with the credit cards for points thing a few days ago. I'm working on getting that in place this week!

GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect. My Mom and Dad were an amazing team in terms of money. My Dad is a savvy business man who can always cut the best deal and make numbers work, whereas my mom was the SAH coupon/raincheck queen. She organized that pantry like no joke with expiration dates. It was impressive that they raised the 4 of us with only my Dad's self made and owned business and all of us going to private school.

momofcatan

@calikat80 I've said this a couple of time, I have a love-hate relationship with Mint. I love everything about it except that (at least when I started using it) you needed to give them your banking log-in information in order to open an account. I am happy to give them my credit card information, but giving out banking log-in is a no for me. My work-around was giving them info for an old account we don't use anymore. Since 95% of our expenses are on our credit cards those are all captured automatically and anything that goes on with our bank account I add in manually.

needanustart

aah @momofcatan good to know! Yeah, DH would not approve of that. Not that I need his approval to do something, but since it's a joint account and we work as a team with money I wouldn't want to do that behind his back! I think I may stick with excel since I have a pretty good hold on our spending with that anyway.

momofcatan

@calikat80 I have not checked it out personally, but a couple of the blogs I follow have mentioned "You Need a Budget". It's $60 one-time cost, but apparently is great software.

ColieAnn31

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? How close are you to completing it?
I haven't set a goal amount yet. Just want to start putting at least $500 into savings each month.

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of?
I have started taking my lunch to work. Alex will also be taking his lunch. And we are also setting a cash budget of $40 a week for Alex since he works in the field.

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone.
No tips yet

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving?
I just started using mint. Alex has had it but wasn't keeping track of it obviously. I just set up our budgets on there.

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group?

GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect.

daffy2k

1. What is your budgeting/savings goal? How close are you to completing it? My goal is to have $50,000 saved up to put down as an anniversary payment on our mortgage by May. I'm trying to do this while also putting a double up payment on every couple of months and setting aside money for Christmas shopping and a winter vacation. My goals are pretty lofty, but I'm pretty well on track. 

2. What are you doing this week to help you reach your goal? What are you proud of? I have an automatic transfer to put the money aside. What I'm doing to make sure I'm able to reach my goals is really cracking down on our frugal lifestyle. Both H and I have tendencies to spend, and when the money is there it's hard not to question it. But I've made us a very strict budget, meal planning, couponing and whatever I can do to cut back our necessary expenses. We will reward ourselves for this by going on a fabulous holiday in February (also our christmas gift to each other, so we'll save there too). 

3. Pick one budgeting or money saving tip to share with everyone. Pay yourself first. Make sure your savings goal is manageable with your monthly expenses, set it aside as soon as you get paid. Pay your bills next and whatever's left is fair game. Also meal planning. Can't say enough good things about it. I plan my weekly meals based on what I have stocked my freezer with and the produce on sale in the flyers that week. If I do this consistently I can keep our grocery bill under $500/ month and still eat really well. 

4. How do you keep track of your spending and saving? I use the Mint.com app. 

5. Any budgeting/finance question you would like to ask the group? 

 GTYK: What is your budgeting/saving inspiration? Person, book, blog, ect. My mom is definitely my inspiration. Now that I'm managing my own household, I look back and wonder how on earth she did what she did as a single parent on a teacher's salary. I try and follow a lot of her same strategies when it comes to budgeting because somehow she managed to do what we want to do on a much lower income.

Lizzybizzy80

@steamboat123‌ I almost put you down as my budgeting/savings inspiration. You rock.

Would an HSA be a good idea if we are considering trying for a second one day? Odds are I would have another c section.

Lizzybizzy80

@steamboat123‌ it looks like it is embedded and newborns have their own deductible. We had a $4,000 sticker shock when B was born because I didn't know he wouldn't be under my deductible, so we were out $8,000 total.

momofcatan

@lizzybizzy80 30% pre-tax income to saving! I'm inspired by YOU!

@megsw85 Do you know ahead of time what his per diem will be? Do they always cover whatever his costs are and its just a cashflow issue (needing to wait for the reimbursement)?

If you want to get your DH on-board with spending wisely you need to show why you need that money. You said you wanted to save for a down payment. Show him that X amount of dollars a month will mean it will take you X long to get that down payment. If you can't save at least X each month it won't happen. Also more savings could mean more money go visit him with the kids (or maybe without them? ). For my DH (and for me sometimes) there needs to be a tangible, measurable goal to motivate me.

Lizzybizzy80

Sticker shock sounds really bad. His medical bills were over $250,000 so $4,000 didn't look terrible.

loubert

momofcatan said:

@calikat80 I have not checked it out personally, but a couple of the blogs I follow have mentioned "You Need a Budget". It's $60 one-time cost, but apparently is great software.

We use this and we love it.  Makes monthly planning/budgeting so easy.  And there is an app so my DH and I can both add in purchases and credits on our phone right after they happen.  Very convenient.

Lizzybizzy80

steamboat123 said:

Lizzybizzy80 said:

Sticker shock sounds really bad. His medical bills were over $250,000 so $4,000 didn't look terrible.

How is he doing? No flare ups?

He's doing awesome, thanks! Only one stricture when he was little and no bouts with constipation or enterocolitis. We've been really lucky.

Actually I didn't think of this before but I'll have to consider the very tiny chance a sibling could have the same condition and need surgery.

Lizzybizzy80

Sympkin said:

Lizzybizzy80 said:

Sticker shock sounds really bad. His medical bills were over $250,000 so $4,000 didn't look terrible.

Crap, my head boggles when I hear about $40 copays! You are totally allowed to be surprised by a multiple thousand dollar bill!

We were surprised to say the least. I just felt like sticker shock maybe sounded too flippant, we didn't have buyer's remorse or anything :P

momofcatan

@sympkin DH and I had a huge fight about this because he really wanted to use Mint. I grew up in a house where my parents refuse to pay by debit card because they don't want to give any one direct access to their bank account, so giving up my passwords was not happening. I'm much looser with my credit cards I guess because you can't steal all my actual money with them. I was happy we found a work-around that worked for us, because it is really awesome.

daffy2k

Including the hotel $900 is awesome I would think... When I need to reign in H's spending, I show him the graph on Mint and how much he is over his alloted beer and wings budget. Because he doesn't really spend much money aside from going out with his buddies on days off or after work sometimes he often forgets how those trips to OJ's actually add up. To him it feels like he rarely does it, but when he sees it on the screen he becomes more aware.

numbersgirl08

megsw85 said:

@momofcatan‌ his per diem is $150 unless they are up at fort Mac or someplace like that. I think part of his problem. When the crew goes out for a big meal or drinks he feels like he has to go to. He does work really hard and is away from us for long periods ( we are at 18 days and counting) he works 15 hr days or more. I just keep at him to use the account to verify how much a day he is spending cause he has no idea. For example in 10 days on the work trip between hotel, food and booze he spent over $900

STUCK IN BOX!

Maybe I'm not understanding right - but if his per diem is $150 (I assume that is per day, which is how our per diems at work work), and he spends $900 in 10 days, that's only $90/day. He still has $60/day.  And if he spends less than $150/day can he pocket that?

Whenever I traveled to work on a per diem, I managed to pocket extra money because I never spent it all

numbersgirl08

@megsw85‌ I would just start to calculate how much he is spending against the per diem. If it's more, then he needs to cut back. If it's less or right at the amount, then that's fine, unless you want to try to make money off of it. It can seem like a lot but if it's actually covered by his per diem then it might not be as big of a drain as it seems.

I travelled for work a good bit in a prior job. It can add up quickly and you don't always feel like you have a choice. But luckily it was always covered by my company.

momofcatan

What @numbersgirl said. If he's only spending on average $90/day then it sounds like you are coming out on top. I hear what you are saying about not getting a break when he's gone messing with your perception, wish I was closer so I could come visit