My Debt Reduction Blog » Budget http://www.mydrblog.com/blog Our road down debt reduction to elimination, and living without a budget Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:47:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 en Why is it so hard to create a budget? http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/10/09/why-is-it-so-hard-to-create-a-budget/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/10/09/why-is-it-so-hard-to-create-a-budget/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2007 11:45:46 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/10/09/why-is-it-so-hard-to-create-a-budget/ I know we need one, heck, everyone should have one. But why don’t I? Is it because I’m a procrastinator? Is it because I have no idea how to create one? Is it because I still don’t have grips on all our expenses? Or is it that I’m just full of excuses and lazy?

I started this blog to help me keep focused on our goal, but I am still missing the key ingredient to this debt elimination recipe. That must change!

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]]> http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/10/09/why-is-it-so-hard-to-create-a-budget/feed/ Didn’t YNAB used to be free? http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/09/18/didnt-ynab-used-to-be-free/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/09/18/didnt-ynab-used-to-be-free/#comments Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:06:56 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/09/18/didnt-ynab-used-to-be-free/ A long time ago, I thought I downloaded the You Need A Budget spreadsheet for free. Today I went to see if I could get again, but see that it costs $19.95. Didn’t it use to be free?

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]]> http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/09/18/didnt-ynab-used-to-be-free/feed/ Zen Habits 12 step program http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/zen-habits-12-step-program/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/zen-habits-12-step-program/#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:01:11 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/zen-habits-12-step-program/ Recently Zen Habits posted a 12 step get out of debt program, and while we’re not on it specifically, I’d say we’d be at step 5 if we were.

We’ve

  • Aknowledged the problem - We’ve enrolled in a debt management program
  • Stop digging - We’ve stopped using credit cards and stopped playing the transfer around game
  • Make small cutbacks - I think we’ve made big cutbacks, and I will do a post on those soon
  • Start an emergency fund - We were actually able to take a few thousand dollars from tax returns and chose to put in an ING account where it is earning a nice interest rate.
  • Take inventory - This is where we at at now. We’re learning where and how much of our cash going out. This step is huge and difficult. Once we have an understanding we will be creating a budget to follow

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]]> http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/zen-habits-12-step-program/feed/ Finally starting to track spending http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/finally-starting-to-track-spending/ http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/finally-starting-to-track-spending/#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:49:26 +0000 Chad http://www.mydrblog.com/blog/2007/07/05/finally-starting-to-track-spending/ 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.

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