Budgeting - Getting Started

Budgeting – Getting Started

The first step I took to organize my finances was to open multiple checking and savings accounts. Today, we are going to start looking at the different checking accounts I have and why.
I have four separate checking accounts.
1. His – Hubby pay check gets directly deposited into his account. Every Friday morning, I log in and transfer his paycheck less $150 into my account. The money left in this account is his to do with as he pleases no questions asked.
2. Mine – My account is where our grocery money, field trips, gifts or anything that is not a definite set amount, including my spending money is kept. As long as our needs are meet and there are groceries in the pantry/freezer this money is mine to spend as I see fit.
3. Bill Account – We deposit the same set amount into this account each Friday. All of our bills are then paid electronically through this account. More on this in a future post.
4. Online Offer Account – Because we have done away with all of our credit cards, I need a debit card for the online offers that I do. I keep a very small amount of money in this account and it is only used for online offers. More on those later.

Why do I need so many accounts? I have found that our money is better managed when we aren’t both dipping from the same pot. I don’t have to stress that he will go by an ATM and pull out a few hundred $ and see a large balance and start spending not knowing that I just mailed off the house, car, and truck payment.

This works for us, but may not work for others. In our home, hubby isn’t involved with any of the bill paying. He knows what the big ticket items are and realizes that everything else cost money but has no idea who I need to pay and when. He just knows that it gets done. The burden of the sole responsibility was very stressful to me until I set up separate accounts and felt I had better control over our spending habits.