Finances

Jessica011010

No, I'm not asking what your family's income is, but I am wondering how people manage their family's finances. Having a 2 year old and 3 month old in daycare has really had us looking at where we can cut back, better budget, etc. So I'm wondering how you manage the finances of the family. Some of this might apply more if there are two incomes, but maybe not, I'm looking for any and all ideas. For example, do you put all money that comes in, in one account, pay bills, household expenses, etc. out of that? Or do you and SO have seperate accounts and split things 50/50? Or if one spouse makes more money do you split things based on % of income (i.e. 60/40)? Just interested to see how others deal with the crazy money matters of a family!

mplsbride31

It is crazy. And we don't do daycare. I have the full time job and my husband has a couple jobs that he can pick up hours when I'm off so we don't have to do daycare. But we have everything going into one checking account. Right now he's in school so we aren't saving much, so I look forward to starting to save more soon! But I manage all the bills, so I know where everything is going. It sucks though. I just went through last month and did a budget because things have been getting pretty tight:(

mbgreenwalt

Things are tough and really tight.  As much as we would never change things, DD#2 was not planned and we weren't prepared and it has made things tighter with her medical costs.  DH has not had a steady job in 3 years and this winter has been horrible.  All the money goes into one account and I pay the bills from there.  I basically have all the control of the finances at the moment so that every penny is accounted for.

Janell's Nest

We created a manageable budget and started 1/1/12 with that budget, and it is strictly a cash system.  We have folders we put all our "budgeted" items in and take from them when we need to make purchases.  We save receipts and at the end of the month evaluate if we need to make any changes.  This has worked for us so far and we've found that we have roughly 600-700 left over after the month and all our bills are paid. 

All bills are paid online through our joint checking account and that is the ONLY money that is left in the bank account.

Hope that helps.

AshleyR2452

We put all of our money into one joint checking account and track all outgoing expenses using budgettracker.com