Yesterday at church, the message was about money/finances and I thought this would make a perfect blog topic. For some reason, discussing money is seen as an intimate topic that is usually not discussed in great detail. I can understand wanting to keep some things personal, but if you would like to share some of the not so personal information, I am curious about a few things concerning money.
First off, I just want to say that my parents never discussed money with me growing up. Not until college did I understand how much a car or a house costs. I never knew how much my parents earned or what they paid in bills. I think the same is true for a lot of kids growing up. I wish there was a class you could take in high school called "Real Living". I think this is a HUGE piece missing from our school system. Kids need to learn about taxes, credit scores, fiance charges, how to obtain a loan, how to re-fiance, how to purchase a car, how to grocery shop, etc, etc. I partly blame the economy for the way it is now for lack of education. People living way beyond their means because no one is teaching them how to live or how much it costs to live.
Now on to my curiosities:
Who is the money manager in your household? (Who pays the bills) You or your husband?
Do you balance your checkbook? Do you know exactly how much money you have at any given time?
Do you use a budget? If yes, what process do you use? For example, some people use the envelope system, some use a computer software, ect.
Do you use credit cards?
How much per week do you spend on groceries?
Did your parents teach you about money?
Do you have a seperate bank account from your husband/wife?
There are a lot of systems for getting out of debt- Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman to name a few- are you using one of those systems now?
Do you have a college fund in place for your child/children?
If you feel comforable sharing, I would LOVE to hear your answers!
7 comments:
OK. Wow. Good post. First of all, when you graduated, did you have to take "Consumer Economics" with Mrs. Childs? I feel like a lot of the things you just mentioned in "Real Living" were covered in my consumer economics class in high school. I don't think refinancing was covered in there, but I think the other stuff was.
Now, to answer your questions.
I am the money manager in our household, but I do everything in agreement with Matt. I'm just the one who has time to do it.
I don't balance my checkbook with my statements, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate to how much money is in it.
We use a budget. It's part of computer software called Microsoft Money, which they stopped making. Even though it's on the computer, it works like the envelope system.
We have a credit card for emergencies, but never keep a balance on it.
We currently spend about $70 per week on groceries, but a lot of that is formula for the baby.
My parents taught me about money. Before my mom stayed home with us kids, she was assistant vice president of a bank, so it came naturally.
Matt and I share a bank account.
We are not using a guru's system.
Our "college fund" is the fact that Matt is a professor and our kids can go to that school for free.
I'm actually thinking of starting a little home business helping people make budgets (and also doing other things), because it's one of the things that I think is important that a lot of people are missing out on.
I love talking money! You are right, kids in our generation grew up mostly clueless. My husband was totally over-indulged and enabled to stay clueless long into adulthood. The fall-out has been awful. We've had to completely separate our finances.
So I manage my own, my Mom manages his.
I use Quicken and also get daily emails from my bank with the balance which is cool.
I'm a budget nazi.
No credit cards.
No idea on groceries - those are part of Tony's responsibilities so I have no clue what he spends. It is probably around $150 every 5 days, though.
Both my parents taught me about money in different ways. I actively teach my kids about all this stuff to a much greater degree than my parents did, too. Both my older kids have credit cards (bank cards, not lines of credit) and have maintained their own bank accounts for a few years now. Takes the allure right out of credit cards :) I'm certain they won't make some of the same mistakes I did when I became an adult. They are already way more responsible with money than I was in my 20's!
We do not share a bank account. I think we have every guru system known to man but a system is only as good as the end user is capable :) I don't use a system, (don't need one) but no system could save my poor husband (who actually used to be a financial adviser - there's irony for ya!)
We don't do college funds on principle, I do need to get way better at saving for retirement though.
You should do budgets for people- you are right, so many people have no clue how to make a budget. People would die if they knew how much their daily starbucks was costing them over a year or what those library fines add up to (oh wait - is that just me?)
Jade pays most of our bills, unless I get a sticky note on our desk to pay something, but he will tell me what, how much etc...
He also balances our checkbook. We do all of our bill pay/statements and such thru our credit union.
We dont really use a budget. We pay our bills, using money out of one savings for spending and have another savings for emergency stuff.
Yes, we use credit cards, but we dont put a lot on them...we try to keep a zero balance on them.
We spend around 50-70 on groceries and then one big trip to sams aside from that each month.
We have all of our accounts together.
My parents always told me that if you cant pay cash, you dont need it that bad.
Yes, we have accounts for both girls and we put money in both each week. We NEVER touch either of these accounts.
Great questions. :)
Well, typically I'm the money manager/bill payer but I've slacked really bad lately so Ryan took over.
Yes, I do balance the checkbook (well... DID)... but it was only like once a month. No, I couldn't tell you how much money we had at any given time. If I overdrew, it'd come out of savings.
No budget. Sadly, I was sooo much better at budgeting money when I was 13. I had the envelope system and at that time my bills were "Horse Boarding" "Horse Feed" "Veterinarian/Emergency" "Farrier" *sigh*... the good 'ol days.
We have credit cards, like a couple I'd say. One has a balance... neverending battle to pay it off. I also have Gap and Kohls which have very minimal balances. They're paid off quickly.
Hmm... If I shop every week... probably $75 or so?
Not really, well, not much that I can think of.
We have the same accounts. I do have a separate "business" account for my Photography stuff but as far as our day-to-day jobs/checks... that all is pooled into one account.
No system/guru.. I have Dave Ramsey's book and would love to be disciplined enough to follow it.
No college funds for the kids... still trying to figure out how to pay for ourselves to finish/continue/pay off our degrees...
Wow, I'll try to answer a few of these!!
Tim does most of the bill paying, well actually the bank does it, it's programed to pay the bills every month.
We do not balance our check book, just check online when we're curious.
NO budget :(
Yes, we have credit cards.
We spend about $250 a week on groceries!! As I was reading everyone saying around $50-$75 I thought holy cow, I wish!! Feeding six people can be a little pricey!!
Share a bank account.
No college fund yet...yikes!! I'm counting on them getting some kind of scholarship :)
I am the money manager in the household in that I pay all the bills but Adam deposits his check at the bank every week and is aware of our balance at all times.
I do not balance the checkbook because I don't use checks. We use scheduled online bill pay which shows you your balance and how much is going out at any given time.
We do not use a budget. Nothing even remotely resembling a budget.So far it hasn't mattered but if one of us were to lose our job we would be in trouble.
We use credit cards but rarely. We have one with a blanace that is being paid off and the rest are used and the entire balances are paid off monthly.
I have no idea how much we spend on groceries (again with the budget). If I had to guess it would be about $50 or so. If that? We eat out a lot :)
My parents did teach me about money and I continue to go to my dad for advice. However, we we were also indulged and allowed to be kids. I think you have to have a balance there. They will have the rest of their lives to worry about money.
We have a joint account. I think it would be really hard to have seperate ones. We also have an understanding as a couple that we can buy things that we want (within reason) and talk about large purchases before making them.
We are not using any systems.
We don't have a college fund in place. We are more concerned with saving for retirement at this point and contributing as much to our 401K as possible. I guess we need to set up a wedding fund too, lol.
Who is the money manager in your household? (Who pays the bills) You or your husband?
I do
Do you balance your checkbook? Do you know exactly how much money you have at any given time?
No, pretty much...
Do you use a budget? If yes, what process do you use? For example, some people use the envelope system, some use a computer software, ect.
We use a budget that I have set up in Excel...pretty basic. But I think I got it from Suze Orman...I have read many, many books about how to save/spend money over the last 5 years that Rod and I have been married...
Do you use credit cards?
yes, 1 for everything and it is paid off monthly.
How much per week do you spend on groceries?
50-70 depending on if I need to buy baby food and diapers for Amanda.
Did your parents teach you about money?
yes and no...I have learned what wants vs. needs are.
Do you have a separate bank account from your husband/wife?
no, Rod has given me his check since he moved in with me in '04 :)
There are a lot of systems for getting out of debt- Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman to name a few- are you using one of those systems now?
Suze Orman...but some ideas from Dave as well.
Do you have a college fund in place for your child/children?
Our kids have savings accounts that we put $10 a week in right now...and all Christmas money and b-day money. But no "official" savings account for college...But we plan on saving it for them and just not "telling" them.
I am going to post this on my blog along with what we have done as "BIG" accomplishments over the last 5 years :) Hope to hear comments from all of you.
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