OT- Budgeting?

Re: OT- Budgeting?

• dal2aus member

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  No app, but truthfully, it wouldn't help you anyway if you're new to budgeting.  It's very easy to underestimate your expenses and forget about how you might be frittering away money.  A coffee here, a nail polish there, it adds up, but doesn't show up in a budget. 

  A real world way to figure out if you can stay home is to bank your salary for a few months and live entirely on your husband's salary.  You'll get a feel for what it's really like to maintain your lifestyle with you at home.  Don't forget about maintaining your emergency fund, health insurance, and retirement savings.  If it's too much of a strain, you can keep working and if you decide to quit your job, you'll now have a little nest egg set aside.

  Edit:  forgot something

  

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• purplestarz member

  January 2015

  Agree with PP. When we found out we were expecting we lived entirely off my husband's income for a few months to make sure it was possible, but still have my income as a backup in case it became evident that it wasn't possible. We determined it was doable, though it has forced a drastic lifestyle change. It's easier to get used to that lifestyle change gradually.

  
  *O17 June Siggy Challenge - You had 1 job!*
  
  

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• rose913 member

  January 2015

  I don't know if there is an app but check out the website Mint.com, it is very good for budgeting!

  

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• bf43005 member

  January 2015 edited January 2015

  We use a computer program that isn't so much for budgeting. It's more like a computer check book. I entered in all the bills I know are due and each time I pay them like monthly, yearly, etc. All the bills have catagories, mortgage/rent, pet supplies, home improvement, etc. The program will shows graphs for a month or year and you can see what you spent in each catagory. We enter everything this way. Even if I take out cash from the bank I enter what it's for. Like I take out $200 I put $50 for gas $50 for clothes and $100 for groceries. I can track all our habits this way and it shows where we spent frivously. We did this for about a year before we got pregnant when we knew we were thinking of trying.
  
  Edit: would help if I told you what we used lol. Sorry about that. It's called Quicken Starter Edition.

  
  

  

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• barbiedoesbaby member

  January 2015

  Quicken bought Mint.com and I recommend either for budgeting! Mint.com is easy to get started online and you can connect your credit cards to do automatic categorization.

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• AlyZ07 member

  January 2015

  Check out daveramsey.com for all budgeting and financial questions.

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• LaurenWarwick member

  February 2015

  We use Mint.com but for some reason I didn't even think about using it for checking to see if staying home was plausible on DH's salary only. I'll go play around with it and see what I can find out.
  
  I'll check out daveramsey.com too!
  
  Thanks!

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