Comments (5)

By Alyssa, April 11, 2011 1:11 pm

After taking the Financial Peace course, Haus and I realized that I am a bit of a control freak (shocking, I know) and Haus is more of what Dave Ramsey would call the “Free Spirit”.  In other words, Haus doesn’t really carry long term worries, thinks it will all work out in the end while I watch pennies with precision. Because of our money differences, we found it just didn’t work when I had total control of the budget (You spent HOW MUCH on golf shirts?) nor did it work when he had total control of the budget (with a control freak looking over his shoulder).  About a year ago, we settled on a compromise that I LOVE and will share with you now.

1. Haus controls the big picture budget stuff (Season 6 of The Office, he’s Michael Scott)- Haus manages a spreadsheet that tracks the income minus our expenses, he allocates money for our cash budget, pays all of the bills online.

2. I control the day to day budget stuff (that’s right, I’m co-manager Jim Halpert, peeps)- I have tabs on our cash budget, file all of the bill statements that Haus pays, plan 0ur cash budget around long term goals.  Haus is paid every two weeks so I take-out the cash on his pay day.

I like several things about this set-up.  With Haus taking the overall, I don’t have that pressure anymore and, believe me, budget pressure can weigh you down.  I still file the bill statements to make sure we aren’t being overcharged on anything, however I no longer make online payments.  Haus hated splitting up the cash so he’s happy with me keeping control of it and doesn’t mind me dishing out our allowance.  Every six months or so we reevaluate how much I need it cash as it does change with our goals (or how much more the boys are eating!).

CONTROL FREAK ALERT!  Please note that this set-up only works if the control freak doesn’t snoop around into big picture guy’s set-up.  I will admit in the beginning it was hard for me not to check our online stuff, and we did have a late payment once or twice (which I casually mentioned later without making him feel super bad). I don’t think Haus would have really taken charge of part of the budget if he thought I was going to swoop in and control his stuff.

I keep our cash budget in a coupon holder I found for $3 at Target.

I keep track of the funds with index cards like this:

In the beginning, I used the Dave Ramsey style cash envelopes but wore them out too fast and found it a pain to open and close envelopes at the cash register while wrangling toddlers.  I tried a small binder with plastic ziploc sections for the cash but that was too bulky.  Still trying to find a good way to hold change in the coupon book but overall I really like it.

Each pocket of the coupon book holds one or two categories.  Some of the categories I only pull cash out once a month so I’ve split them up accordingly to pull out the same amount of cash every two weeks.  Here are the categories that are in the coupon book:

Dining Out/Entertainment
Dry Cleaning
Gifts
Groceries (which includes toiletries)
Pet (Chocolate Lab to be exact)
Kids/Homeschool
Housing
Blow Fund (A Dave Ramsey thing, our just-in-case fund)

I also have categories for my allowance and Haus’ allowance, however I don’t keep those in the coupon book. We don’t pull out cash for gas for the vehicles and we’re debating on keeping a haircut fund as this is only something we do every couple of months.  I do some online shopping for better deals, but complete purchases the day I’m pulling out cash and minus off the online expenditures.

And that, my friends, is how the Aarhaus fam shares the budget duties.  I know this doesn’t really tell you how to start a budget, but I really feel like you need to go to the Financial Peace course to figure that out, preferably with your spouse as you need to be on the same page.

Do you have a cool way to keep a budget?  I’d love to hear your suggestions and questions if you’ve got them!

Comments (5)

By Alyssa, January 2, 2011 10:38 pm

If you read my last post about debt, you know how passionate I am about Dave Ramsey.  Financial Peace University is the reason we are starting this year out with NO consumer debt.  Just last month we finally paid off Haus’ school loans, the last of a long line of consumer debt pay-offs.  Since June 2008, we’ve paid off a total of $44,800 worth of debt.  Almost $45,000!!  I say this not to brag because, let me tell ya, when we started it all I didn’t think it was possible.

We signed up for Financial Peace when I was 7 months preggered with Zeke and about to get out of the Army.  Yep, we decided to figure out the finances right before going down to one income and multiplying the family.  Didn’t make it easier for us, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  So how did we do it?  Pay off more than $15,000 dollars a year on one main income?

We started by writing down everything we were spending our money on and then coming up with a cash budget for everything.  EVERYTHING.  I didn’t think cash would be necessary for stuff like groceries or gas, but I must say, when you start handing out $20 bills to people you rethink what you eat and where you drive.  We followed the rest of Dave’s steps by setting up a $1000 emergency fund and cutting up all of our credit cards.  We tossed all the credit cards because we realized we didn’t need them for emergencies with our fund or the one time in every three years that we rent cars.

Then came the hard part.  Getting rid of debt.  At first it was fun, selling things on Craigslist and Ebay to get as much money as possible to pay off the little debts.  We sold an extra car and gave ourselves the goal in 2009 to start 2010 without car payments.  We made the last payment on our truck in December 2009 and promised ourselves we will never make another car payment again… ever.  Still not sure how we paid off our almost $18,000 worth of car loans in those first six months, but we did it.  Didn’t eat out, didn’t do a lot of fun stuff, made gifts instead of buying them, and now we own our vehicles.

With the cars payment and credit card payments gone in the first six months after taking the course, the last debt we had was school loans.  ARGGHHHH.  I didn’t have any school loans thanks to the Army, but Haus came with over $25,000.  It took us two full years to pay them off and it was soooo hard.  I think the hardest part was sticking to the plan.  We had a lot of people tell us, oh, you’ll save on your taxes, or it’s such a small payment, don’t worry about it.  It was really hard not to listen to that stuff and be committed.  I’m so glad now we did it.  There is a weight that lifts when you realize you don’t owe anymore.  It’s hard to describe.

We’ve still have big goals for the future.  We would like to pay off the house in the next ten years and then call Dave’s radio show to tell him we are COMPLETELY debt free.  We would like to beef up our investments now and the kiddo’s college funds (Dave tells you not to contribute until your debt is paid off).  I think the key to all of this was taking that class.  You have to be on the same page with your spouse or it doesn’t work. Pretty sure all of their classes have free childcare too.  Check his page out here.

Did you make any big debt payments this year?  Would love to hear about it.  Oh and couldn’t end the post without yelling out to Dave (he reads my stuff, right??)…

WE’RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!

Comments (9)

By Alyssa, February 10, 2010 10:46 am

Courtesy of Dave Ramsey's website

I’m excited.  Nope, beyond excited.  We could potentially be DEBT FREE BY JUNE!

I think June would be fitting as it was June in 2008 when we started this process.  I was pregnant with Zeke when we first attended a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class. Close friends raved about the material and we decided with our upcoming life changes (another baby, leaving active Army, final move to Denver) that it wouldn’t hurt for us to attend the 13 week course.  Hubby and I felt like we were fairly good stewards of our income before the class.  We started the course with minor credit card debt, car payments, and a small loan.

It would take more than this post for me to explain the results of going through all 13 weeks.  Hubby and I agree that the course could easily be called the Dave Ramsey Financial Marriage Counseling study.  The material helped us get to the root of our problems with finances, why and when we spend, and ended up improving our marriage as we improved the way we managed our finances.  Not only that, the class completely transformed how we look at money.

Even before we finished the 13 weeks, we sold numerous household items, a car, and our house.  Amidst selling and buying a home, we paid off over  $15,000 of our consumer debt (all debt except a home mortgage).  Using the course steps, we secured an emergency fund, and started our “debt snowball” so that by the time I left the Army, we had paid off over $30,000, almost all of our debt. I tell you this not to brag, but to encourage anyone that is considering changing the way they handle their money.  We were amazed at how our cash budget and extra work (overtime pay, odd jobs, etc.) amazingly added up to major debt pay-offs.

We are so close to the end of this step in our financial process that I can’t help but feel giddy.  After I left active duty and we went down to one income, our debt payoff when from a fire hose to a faucet trickle.  I started to feel discouraged that we would never be debt-free.  Crazy that I wasn’t satisfied with paying off $30,000 the year before.  I guess my hopelessness had more personal roots.  When I left the Army, I agreed with Hubby that as soon as all of our consumer debt was paid off, in other words his school loans were paid off, that we could try to have another baby.  At the beginning of this year, I reasoned that we probably wouldn’t raise enough until next year with his income and my small Army drill contributions.

Man was I  wrong!  Foreseeing no major catastrophes, it looks like our tax return and my Army training this spring will pay everything off within the next few months.  WITHIN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS!!  I’ll keep you updated as we get closer to the goal.  I can’t wait to call Dave Ramsey and yell, “WE’RE DEBT FREE!”  Oh, and “I’M PREGNANT!”