Does your money manage you or do you manage your money?

After the class we took this fall, I have to say I have a much different perspective on money management.

Here are a few things we are trying to do:

1. Friday nights are our budget nights. We sit on the couch and look through what we’ve spent, what we have, and what still needs to be paid this month. Not romantic, but it keeps us working together and on the right track toward meeting our financial goals. We have a great spreadsheet that helps us keep our totals and we just put in what we’ve spent in whatever category and it tells us what we should have left in our account and we can check.
2. We’ve started a Christmas account. It’s a savings account that makes a good interest rate. We put $200 dollars in it ($100 for January, and $100 for February). We’re going to keep putting in $100 each month. This way, when Christmas comes around, we’ll have $1200 for gifts, food, travel, clothes, pictures, etc. and we won’t have to use a credit card. If all goes well, next year we’ll start a Gift account too and we’ll put in $30 a month. This way we will always have money for presents for b-days, showers, and other random occasions.
3. We’re starting a college fund for the girls. Right now we’ve just gotten another savings account because the interest rate is far better than any rate we can find elsewhere.
4. We’re contemplating alternating our food budget each month. We find that one month we spend close to $500 and then the next is $300. One month I’ll stock up on staples and that will last us for a few months and then we need to stock up again. By doing this, we can budget $500 and for the months we don’t spend that much, at the end of the month we can make an extra payment on something, like the house.
5. I’m trying to plan a whole month of meals and expand the variety of what we’re eating. This way, we get to look forward to some fun meals and aren’t so tempted to eat out (not that we can with two tikes).