[speaker001:] okay Janet do you guys have a family budget
[speaker002:] we try to like mothers I'm sitting I'm right this minute dishing up cheap spaghetti which is one way we try and keep within a budget
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh it's probably why we're participating too right
[speaker002:] although I'm trying to raise money for a boy scout cause um actually how we do it is my husband and I both work and we try very hard to live on his salary and my salary goes automatically into a savings account which we try not to use too much although from that we both definitely we typically pay our credit cards from that account
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] so that's the that's the uh our household expenses are pretty well covered because they're pretty much the same every month but it's our credit card spending that it's always the problem
[speaker001:] yep is the cost of living uh high down there is it tough to
[speaker002:] I don't know what to compare it to I lived in Indiana and Saint Louis but I was a student then and you know when you're a student things don't mean much um I think Dallas is um
[speaker001:] I know it's just a yeah um-hum right
[speaker002:] relatively high priced homes but then there's not I think energy and some of the other things aren't quite so high
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and I my my gestalt is that our groceries are sort of intermediate there're not as bad as I have seen in big cities like New York or California areas
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] how about you
[speaker001:] um the cost of living here is cheap in in fact it's really great we've got a a quite a nice home we've got a five bedroom home home with a basement in it and it cost me through let me see four years ago it cost me fifty five thousand so it's great I mean uh uh
[speaker002:] that is where are you from originally
[speaker001:] right here in Idaho
[speaker002:] from from Idaho
[speaker001:] yes I've got a brother in law in Plano Texas and that's how we got hooked up with this uh TI deal but it's
[speaker002:] well I don't know anyone from Idaho I'm from Indiana um and I have a great love for the Midwest
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] would go back in a minute if I could but I married a Texan
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] they don't always tell you that they have a homing instinct
[speaker001:] well that's good um-hum
[speaker002:] but I our home uh we have a five bedroom home um but it's more in the range of with around two hundred forty thousand
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so about four and a half times your home I'm sure they're probably quite comparable
[speaker001:] yeah right yeah
[speaker002:] or maybe I don't know ours is nice our home is nicely located but I don't think the house itself is
[speaker001:] um-hum yeah well I I wouldn't uh mine's not nicely located I probably got a bargain I think more
[speaker002:] particularly extraordinary how about budget wise how how do you do a family budget are you married
[speaker001:] um-hum yes I am and my wife is very meticulous about budgeting she has a computer program in fact I'm an accountant I'm a CPA I'm calling you from work tonight uh but uh my wife runs every single check she spends through a computer and she can tell me on a monthly basis and she's more interested not me in fact I only look at it once a year when I do our we do our taxes but she can tell you every month exactly what she's paid for groceries and uh utility bills and for gasoline in the cars and everything she's uh
[speaker002:] uh my husband tries very hard to do that for us and we used the Managing Your Money software package with Andrew Tobias he is familiar with that one
[speaker001:] uh-huh um yeah I'm not I'm not uh-huh
[speaker002:] well I mean now I'm sure there are a million software packages but um he tried very hard and we were all computerized and we
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] our regular monthly checks we printed you know um and I hated I did it for three years and hated every minute of it and still founded about half of our checks
[speaker001:] um-hum huh
[speaker002:] maybe a third I still hand wrote because it would be like in the school parking lot or
[speaker001:] hm yep
[speaker002:] you know at my child's skating lesson or something like that so we had to come we had two checks two sizes of checks
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] um excuse me Beth right there my daughter wants to know where the spaghetti cheese is um so we we tried and it was pretty nice one of one mistake I think we made in that is that um for budgeting purposes in terms of putting it in a budget we must have had eighty different categories and so they they became sort of nonsensical instead of I always said if we had redone it we should have just put big categories like utilities
[speaker001:] yep um-hum right
[speaker002:] and you know luxuries and entertainment that sort of thing
[speaker001:] we have about twenty five categories is all probably and we write all of our checks out of the register we don't try to do any through the computer and then my wife just sets down when she's got about an hour and just keys them all in and it's really not you know that bad it um well I don't know it might it might've been tough for you but she enjoys it and that's another thing too she really enjoys it she uh uh
[speaker002:] well I see I suppose that's the key um
[speaker001:] just gets a thrill out of seeing where her money went I guess
[speaker002:] do you does your wife work outside the home
[speaker001:] she does she's she teaches at um a small two year college here she's uh teaches uh business communications
[speaker002:] oh my goodness well with a CPA and a business person you should be organized
[speaker001:] and uh yeah uh I don't know no we still have problems with money like everybody else
[speaker002:] yeah