We don’t have a budget, at least not yet. I couldn’t tell you how much we spend on any particular expense in any given month. Cripes, I couldn’t even tell you how much income we have in a month. Sure, I could ballpark it pretty close, but we need an exact plan. So starting in July we will now keep every receipt, instead of losing them or shredding them and tracking every expense. I’m also going to start using a financial program. I don’t run Windows or Mac in my house so Quicken and MS Money are out of the question. I will be trying out of few apps that run on Linux. I’m hoping this gives me a better idea what we pay out every month allowing us to create an accurate budget, but may also point out a few more area’s where we could save some money.

This will be an ongoing topic while we sort everything out and create our budget. So follow along on this one and feel free to point out flaws in our thinking.