[speaker001:] hi
[speaker002:] okay uh do you have a budget
[speaker001:] we sure do as a matter of fact I do the finances in the family and what I do is take uh entire take home pay and then I like divvy it up into sections into the house into the car into the utilities anything that's to do with the house like utilities or electric or anything like that goes into the house budget and then I have one for the food and one for um and and each of these is allotted a certain amount of money and hopefully we stay within that budget and then uh we have some for uh debt and some for just plain family you know like if the kids need clothes or if um oh I don't know you know if something something in the house well the house one gets the money for the budget if we need something new in the house or something like that
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and that's pretty much how we do it
[speaker002:] does does it I mean does it work pretty good I mean you are you able to stay on track pretty much
[speaker001:] yeah um-hum it does uh now the way that we can really get off track is if I start to pull money from something and put it into another into another budget like if I
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] have money put into the house budget and all the bills that go with that and I start siphon siphoning money out of that like into the food bill budget
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] um to buy more food and I don't do that usually but when it does happen then I get into problems with you know then I have to take money from somewhere else to pay the bills on the house and I don't like to do that then you can get really into trouble and that doesn't happen very often because I'm pretty strict I don't usually take money from anywhere
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] unless I absolutely have to
[speaker002:] yeah we don't we don't really have a budget per se we pretty much know what our bills are and you know ours ours is pretty simple but uh but what I do have I do have we do have a plan where we do put X number of dollars away
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] every month both through the employment uh sectors and also privately in in an investment portfolio
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so that goes we take that out right off the top
[speaker001:] well that's great um-hum
[speaker002:] course the employment comes out before you ever see it but then the other stuff the private stuff we take out and then we disburse it into those uh accounts before we even start the rest uh but on the budget we of course we haven't really gotten into trouble by not having a budget yet I can see definitely see that there is a need for one though and probably as my daughter gets a little bit older and we start getting involved in in other major purchases and things like that we'll have to do that
[speaker001:] uh it's it's kind of a good thing with my husband's company we can allot a certain amount of money and all of our we have four children each of our children have a savings account and then there's a basic savings account like a family one
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and what the his um company does for us is we allot a certain amount and like you said uh they take they just take that straight out of the paycheck and put it right in the savings account we don't even see that money we can take it I mean it's well available to us if we want to take it out but uh we just try not to touch that
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] but you know and so we try not to even take that as part of our budget we just try to put that right away in savings it's very difficult sometimes to to not think and say well God we have a little bit in savings let's you know but you have to be quite um adamant and say you're not going to touch that so
[speaker002:] yeah yeah we we have a we have one savings account that we have jointly
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] that we can take out of if we if we decide we want something
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but that's the only one we touch everything else we have we have promised each other we will not touch anything else in fact like CDs and money markets and all kind of stuff we've got it set up to where it takes both of us to sign it
[speaker001:] I think that's great
[speaker002:] so in case one of us decides to get weak or something like that you know say well you know if we won't miss this or we won't miss that you know uh so our our investment portion of it we don't we don't even touch it if we get low on money or we we go other avenues we don't
[speaker001:] yeah right
[speaker002:] we don't ever touch that so
[speaker001:] yeah we don't touch the kids we do have the joint one like you said and we do fluctuate money in that one if we want to and then there's one other thing that we have and and we don't touch the money in that one
[speaker002:] so yeah we do the same for our daughter we have uh of course when she was born we just took you know a lump sum of money and put it in a C D
[speaker001:] um-hum that's really good
[speaker002:] as one one means and then we took I take a hundred dollar savings bond out of every paycheck
[speaker001:] that's good
[speaker002:] that's goes directly for for her and then we also have a savings account which we do put X number of dollars in per month which is able to at least build her education fund
[speaker001:] you know and that's so important because today things can be so expensive they really can
[speaker002:] well if you if you really look at it the kids that are are born today by the time it's college time which will be it will be cost prohibitive if if parents don't do it
[speaker001:] that's right exactly
[speaker002:] kids cannot make money that much money in in that time frame uh working odd jobs to pay for that kind of bill
[speaker001:] it's just not possible to do it like maybe we did it when when we went to school
[speaker002:] yeah and and there I don't think there's a lot of opportunity uh in the future for grants and loans and that kind of stuff because I don't I just don't think it's going to be there
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so I think if parents don't provide it's it's not going to be there
[speaker001:] it's too hard that's right
[speaker002:] and uh who knows how much that's going to take I mean what we're taking out now may be enough it may not be and uh just don't know or there may be far more there than is ever needed but if it's if it's extra
[speaker001:] yeah yeah exactly
[speaker002:] then she can go to dental school or any or anything else that she wants to do from from there so
[speaker001:] wouldn't that be great I think that all of those things are really important and and uh the only reason I even went to a budget was I found that we um we would oh I can't think of the word like or money would go through the cracks you know and at the end of the thing we'd go what happened to all that money the extra we had the overflow you know and it just siphons itself away somewhere into the air and so
[speaker002:] um-hum well you know I I you you brought up a real good point because I because I notice we do that occasionally we'll get it we'll get down and think where does all this go we just went out on a frivolous on a frivolous you know like a frivolous spending binge all of a sudden you know and now where did it go
[speaker001:] yeah yeah it's hard to keep track isn't it
[speaker002:] it is uh uh because I know we we have gotten ourselves into that predicament a few times
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] but we've always managed you know to you know to get out of it fairly quickly we don't have a lot charged up on credit cards we don't have you know a lot of money going out
[speaker001:] right I think that's great
[speaker002:] uh than what we can pay for but I think if you do have a budget at least then maybe you'll have extra money sitting around that you can invest more in or do some other things that are a little bit more important
[speaker001:] yeah I didn't used to have uh a money allotted out for debt service until um I just had a baby seven months ago and she had extensive problems and and the the specialists and the hospitals that she had to have you know uh she was in the hospital for like a month and the money that accumulated in those I found I had to make that into the budget to start paying those off and then I mean the insurance
[speaker002:] oh isn 't that something
[speaker001:] pardon
[speaker002:] I say isn't that something about medical bills golly
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I know just one little one little hiccup
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] will just about devastate you
[speaker001:] our insurance was wonderful but it didn't cover everything you know and so
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] yeah fine you have to um do some of those things and and when money is involved it can really get expensive
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] so anyway that's about how we handle our finances and and uh that seems to work pretty well for us
[speaker002:] yeah I keep pretty extensive records on on you know what I do and I average out you know utilities and things like that
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] I I project ahead I usually at the end of the month when I when I pay the bills I'll usually project what I'm going to need for next month but I don't really put it aside I just you know I just try to estimate what I think it's going to come to and then
[speaker001:] yeah well see even that I think is a sort of uh a budget uh when you do that right right
[speaker002:] in some basic sense but I think a planned budget I think is is a real good idea so you just break it down in little subgroups and then you have X number of dollars what you think is adequate to pay those bills
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] now do you save all your receipts
[speaker001:] I do we used to it got to be a great big hassle great big mess and I I just don't do that so what I have is uh a paper and uh and I put two columns my husband on one side and me on the other side uh we pay for check or else we take out of ATM services you know a certain amount of money and I write every check down for the amount of money or whoever takes money out of the ATM I write down that amount of money and as it comes through uh on on the statement then I'll block block it off in in a bright color so we know it's gone and I can see what's left out and what's left over to come through the statement to make sure that we don't overdraw ourselves or anything but uh that's the way I do it uh receipts were a big mess for me I can't do that that was just uh too much
[speaker002:] boy I know with that you receipts for everything
[speaker001:] yeah I couldn't do that so
[speaker002:] are you are you like a coupon saver too for stores and things
[speaker001:] oh yeah oh yeah
[speaker002:] you know I've I've noticed that's a big deal I I have I save every coupon I get my hands on
[speaker001:] I just uh they are such a boon to of housewives I I can't tell you
[speaker002:] hey I mean I know it's it's easy to to get hooked on that stuff because I I