Keeping a Budget {Day One}
by confidentmom on January 1, 2013
Become a Frugali$ta in 30 Days
This extremely popular blog series will soon be for sale as an ebook, chock-full of all the practical money-saving secrets! Busy Family Managers will be able to keep to their budget and earn extra money while saving on everything from entertainment and dining out to household expenses and groceries.
Learn to live well by spending less!
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Tagged as:
family budget,
Family Manager,
money saving tip,
stress reliever
Susan Heid is the mom behind The Confident Mom where she loves inspiring Christian moms to make small changes managing their home and family life giving them more time, less stress and stronger family relationships! She enthusiastically wears the hat of mom, step-mom and foster mom to 4 awesome kids – ages 20, 16, 12 and 3; is married to her very own prince charming, loves coffee, cloudy days, and does think the bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I recently started using http://www.eebacanhelp.com for envelope budgeting. I’ve only used it about a month, but the online programming is simple to use. It can be setup and maintained by computer or android/iPhone. I’m spreading the word. This is a neat program. Includes charts, percentages, lists, etc. Very nice.
Thanks for sharing this! We do not use a cash envelope system, I will share more on that beginning next week. I know cash envelope systems are what work for a lot of people.
Sadly Mint is not available in the UK, so I need to find an alternative. Perhaps the system April referred to above will be an acceptable substitute!
Sorry Ruth – never even had crossed my mind about that! I will keep my eye out for other options!
Is the mint.com safe? I noticed you add all account numbers and such on the site. Im always worried if I do something like that someone will clean my accounts faster than I can.
I know that is a real concern. My hubby is really – really conservative with regard to internet stuff and he felt comfortable using this system. We’ve had no trouble at all – I’ve never heard of anyone either. It really is a great site and would never recommend it if I wouldn’t use it personally or think it was a smart money decision. I hope you will feel comfortable using it!
How long have you used it?
I tried Mint but deleted my account — I didn’t like it because it seemed to process things in its own order, not the way (my brain at least) would logically do it, so it never seemed to actually give me a clear snapshot of my finances — something was always off. I’ve been trying out budgetsimple.com and spendingdiary.com for a while. Spending Diary isn’t a budget site, it’s more expense tracking — but I know it will work abroad, because I had to change the default from pounds to dollars.
Budget Simple lets you input your own budget categories and keep or change them month to month, so it’s a site that works both for budgeting and expense tracking. Both sites are free, although Budget Simple has a paid option, that I’m thinking about trying out for a month so I can check out the reports features — you don’t get much of that in the free version. Spending Diary is better for creating reports.
We currently use Mint and like it rather well. We use the app as well it’s its a great way for my husband and I o stay on top of our expenses. There is also another app/website that is similar called Pageonce. I like that one too.
Thanks Myra – Perhaps others might be able to use Pageonce who cannot use Mint!
We have used it for nearly 3 years. I wouldn’t want to do anything else, it literally changed the way my husband and I spend our money – for the better!
Interesting Joanna – I have never experienced that with Mint – I love the fact that transactions are almost instant – by the time I come home from the grocery store, that transaction is shown and put into the category, or perhaps I have to shift it. I love the ease of splitting a transaction into different budget categories too.
Thanks for sharing the other sites. Mint won’t be for everyone, but it is just the site I’ve had experience with and I love that it is free.
Hi, I’m from the UK too and this is an answer for Ruth above. There’s a UK equivalent website called On Trees;
http://www.ontrees.com
Hope that helps,
Elisa x