Category Archives: budget

Children and Allowance

plan of action
I was watching a few minutes of Wife Swap the other day (I only catch a few minutes here and there since I rarely watch any television at all) and one family was a homeschooling family and the children were given allowance each week but they had to divide it up into various categories, one of them being taxes. The parents said that dad has to pay taxes on the money he makes, so they followed the same example.  Like… Read the rest

Those Darned Receipts

budget
One of my readers, Cynthia From Debt Marathon commented on last Monday in response to my post I'm Drowning in Receipts “…your stack of receipts was outrageous to me!” I agree wholeheartedly!!! Then I thought it might be entertaining to share some stats on those receipts with y'all. This is counting all the receipts I entered into Quicken and Quickbooks, money spent by myself, Mr. A and AJ.  This also includes food shopping that AJ did for his job (party… Read the rest

Why I Use Quicken Rather Than Excel to Track Our Expenses

budget
I love Excel, it is one of my favorite programs. However, when it comes to keeping track of what is coming in and going out, Quicken wins hands down. Easy Reports – I use categories in Quicken and doing so allows me to retrieve reports of all kinds, easily.  Quicken can look at the big picture easily. Add Accounts – It's easy to add a new bank account or savings account. Export to Excel – I do still use Excel… Read the rest

Five Year Financial Plan

plan of action
I was reading over at No More Spending's site about Laura's five year plan. Wow. What a concept.  I have never actually written down any kind of plan for my future.   I have a loose idea of what we want to do, obviously paying off our debt would be at the top of the list.  And I have some ideas on what we need to do for Mr. A's businesses as the extra money becomes available. I think I'll try… Read the rest