Time For A Real Live Budget

[TwoAmericas]

I need to cut back on going to strip clubs.

 

[cell]

your starting to grow on me. thanks for the laugh.

 

[WildHoneyAlways]

I brought my coffee today and have decided to get receipts for everything I buy to get an idea of where it all goes.

That is a very scary thought for me. I purposely avoid looking at my receipts b/c I don't want to think about how much I've spent. Ug. I need a budget too. As it turns out, "Ignorance is Bliss" is not working so well for me.

 

[Bonochick]

If I kept track of how much I spent on magazines, I'd probably shoot myself...if my boyfriend didn't first. I really need to get more subscriptions. It's hard to plunk down one chunk of money at a time...as opposed to smaller bits here and there...but I really would be saving a lot.

 

[ramblin rose]

I use Quicken to track all of my expenses. I bank online via Quicken also (as opposed to my bank's online banking feature.) I don't use cash for anything (I use a debit card) and thereby have an electronic trail of where every cent goes since all of my bank transactions load automatically into Quicken to a predetermined category. It's great because you can run reports that detail exactly where every cent goes, can compare categories from month to month, can setup budgets and then track variances etc.

I manage money for a living so all of this is really second nature to me. But you don't have to be a financial person to use this software. I have helped many of my friends get set up in Quicken for their personal use and they have told me months later that they don't know how they ever managed with it.

 

[EPandAmerica]

I'm so broke after every U2 tour and this one seems to be the daddy of them all. I don't even want to think about how much scrimping I am going to have to do after the end of the year.


See y'all @ MSG