Budgets

I’m on a huge budgeting kick right now.  After the chaos of wedding and Christmas spending, I started to feel a little bit like I was out of control of my finances, so I’m really working hard to set a good budget and some goals for me and Ryan.  Actually, I am pretty good with my money, but I suck at keeping up with a budget (requires too much time and thought), so I set up an account on mint.com.  I had never heard of this before, but I came across it in my research and it is awesome!  (and it’s totally safe and valid).  I’ve entered the information for all of my accounts (checking, savings, credit cards, student loans, mortgage, retirement accounts, etc.) and it tracks all of my spending!  Every time I log in, it updates the information, so I always have a real-time look at how much is in my accounts, and how much I’ve spent.  It breaks your banking and credit card information into different categories too (and I can change or add categories as needed).  Basically, I can see at a glance how much I’ve spent this month on groceries, gas, bills, etc and how it compares to my budget AND to how much I spent last month.  It’s seriously cool (not to mention, completely FREE!). =)

I’m also going to sign up for an account I found out about from Ameritrade.  It’s the Suze Orman "Save Yourself" Plan.  Basically, you open the account, and they automatically draft $100 a month for a year, and then they give you $100!  They do it to encourage people to save to start an investment account.  I already have a Roth, but I don’t know where else I might get an 8.33% return on my money this year! =)  (Actually it’s a little bit higher, because the account also earns a wee bit of interest as well).  Once you get the $100, you are free to close the account if you want.

I know I sound like an advertisement, but I am really excited about these two things, and excited about getting everything in order.  We are hoping to start trying to have a baby towards the end of the year, and I want to be ready.  We have also decided that we are definitely going to have to buy a new car this year (Ryan’s is a ’94 Taurus that I’m expecting to crumble in the driveway one of these days), so we are making a conscious effort to save towards that so we can buy an inexpensive (but reliable) used car outright, rather than having to make a payment.  That would be swell. =)

Since we are trying to save money, I also have a new goal of trying to use more of what we already have in our kitchen and quit eating out and spending so much money on groceries.  We really do have a lot of food that tends to just sit in our cabinets.  This also goes along with my married goal of trying to be a little more domestic and try cooking new things, so that’s good.  Also, I am trying to see what kind of cheap lunches I can eat.  This week, I made a can of tomato soup ($.60) and got two meals out of it (had it with a sprinkle of cheese and some saltines–yum!).  I don’t think I can get much cheaper than that!!