[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] I think
[speaker001:] yes yes I'm sure that it
[speaker002:] let's see I didn't I didn't hear the message that it says you make the uh maybe I didn't press it hard enough let's try again
[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] hum
[speaker001:] well it it just that that uh recording would begin when the person who called presses
[speaker002:] right okay so so I will just assume that we are being recorded now I thought that they had a confirmation message when that occurred but perhaps not anyway I did press let me press one once again
[speaker001:] one but okay
[speaker002:] well I'll I'll take it that that did it okay so um the answer to that well maybe I should answer the question first since I have had so long to think about it um I uh use uh a program on my Macintosh which is called Dollars and Cents actually it hails from the bay area where you're from and uh
[speaker001:] oh I'm not in San Francisco I'm in Frisco Texas
[speaker002:] oh Frisco Texas uh gee I don't even know
[speaker001:] where are you
[speaker002:] Raleigh North Carolina
[speaker001:] Raleigh North Carolina I thought you said Rowlett we have a little town out here yes okay you know where Dallas is
[speaker002:] I see okay well anyway it doesn't hail from the area where you are but uh uh anyway uh so so anyway I use this a personal personal accounting program on my Macintosh to keep track of expenses but it also has a budget feature but I don't find it very useful because it makes all kinds of assumptions that aren't the case in my situation so I use the the little spread sheets for that I I I don't know actually I think most people who are in the series are a little bit familiar with computers but if you're not let me know and I will give more explanation
[speaker001:] oh okay I am familiar I am familiar with computers
[speaker002:] okay so have you do you do you use a computer to do your budgeting
[speaker001:] no we don't my husband uh takes care of our finances and he just uh just does it all all manually he keeps uh a book sort of
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] he uh doesn't keep it on the computer I work with computers and we have one at home but he doesn't use it for that
[speaker002:] I found that it was uh you well you have a lot more information if you use a computer because you just can't keep track of everything manually you'll never go back through the old slips and see what your electric bill was and so forth but
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] if if you can just print it out it gives you a lot better feel for how you stand compared to last year um
[speaker001:] and that is a software program that was written for your uh I mean that you
[speaker002:] for Macintosh yes
[speaker001:] just for Macintosh
[speaker002:] um it's called Dollars and Cents and actually the leading program is Managing Your Monies by Andrew Tobias but I used that one year and it was so awful that I just gave up
[speaker001:] too much detail
[speaker002:] excuse me
[speaker001:] was it too much detail to it
[speaker002:] it was well it would bring up a new screen for everything you know you you um you would make one entry like for example if you were reconciling your check account and you wanted to change a transaction let's say you wanted to add in interest or put in a fee or something it took about three screens to do that and you could only see the one transaction you were working on all the earlier transactions were hidden it was just it it you just
[speaker001:] primitive
[speaker002:] yeah it had tunnel vision I mean it had a lot of features but they were all so hard to use that I never never really used any of them so uh I I I read since then though that they've redesigned redesigned uh redesigned the interface so probably it's a little better uh than it was before um so um do you do you do a uh a yearly budget or a monthly budget or
[speaker001:] uh I am not sure right now I think he is keeping he has it uh kind of a forecast out for oh about the next uh eighteen months or so he keeps track of all of um you know the the payments that are due when and uh what what pays off when and uh of course he knows ahead of time about when the uh home owner's is due and when the car insurance is due and such like that and he just
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] sort of keeps uh I guess you would say a running record of it so that he he knows at what point uh we are going to be able to to have uh some extra money
[speaker002:] um-hum uh yeah I try and uh I think that one of the things I've I've worked on is cutting down on the number of transactions uh so so I I instead of paying bills monthly if they are not very much uh I just pay enough for two months when I pay one month's bill and that way I have to send you know substantially fewer number of things out in the mail which saves a lot of time
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and uh uh gee I pretty my pay my cable TV annually you get a discount for doing that they give you the thirteenth month of month of service free if they remember
[speaker001:] well that's nice
[speaker002:] but they say uh they always forget you every year they mess it up and forget to give me credit or or or shall I say five out of the last six years so I called in and uh at first I got kind of upset but now
[speaker001:] now you expect it
[speaker002:] oh yeah now I know they are going to do that um