Forum Index
»
Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)
Help! Our finances are kind of a mess...
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I have been completely lazy and let my DH manage ALL our finances. He has become too busy, as of late, and bills have been late. We HAVE the money, he just cannot seem to sit down and pay the bills!
I want to do some of this, but feel lost with how many accounts we have, the Quicken software, what is online, what isn't. Should we start from scratch or should I learn his system? Is there someone I can hire to help us suss out a system? Crap. This sucks. I feel so....powerless. |
Anonymous
|
I can sympathize. My husband believes in paying at the very last minute which means he gets busy and forgets. I'm the opposite. I pay the bill when it comes in.
Best to sit down with him and say you've busy of late and we need to be on top of these bills and get the dump from him. I would move everything to online, automatic payments if you have the money. We don't write a check for anything now and pay our credit card from online. Forget about quicken - i always thought it was more work than necessary. |
aprilmayjune
Member Offline
Member Offline
| Do you get paid every two weeks? We usually pay all of our monthly bills with the first check of a month, and than the next months rent with the second check. That works really well for us... We also do alll of our banking and bill paying online like the PP said, it makes life SOOO much easier. |
Anonymous
|
OP here.
We have a pretty complex system, from what I understand. Lots and lots of accounts and credit cards. We pay some bills online, some not. My husband gets paid sporadically, b/c he is a business owner and pays himself, essentially, when he can. 12:55, how do you track everything if you are not using Quicken? |
Anonymous
| We have all of our bills set up on automatic bill pay through our bank. That way, the bills get paid on time; not too early (so you can accumulate as much interest as possible) and not too late. EVERYTHING gets paid out of this account. And we don't use Quicken, either. Too much effort, IMO. |
Anonymous
| Automatic bill pay and an excel spreadsheet. Easy as can be. My husband uses some pie graph thingy but thats more for information purposes and I don't really care about it, I just want to get the bills paid! |
Anonymous
| I think you can keep track if you simplify. Less credit cards (2 or 3) and checking account (1) . Same with savings and investments - we consolidated all to schwab. |
Anonymous
|
OP I so feel your pain. Let DH (also a business owner -shocking his business is OK given recent events in our household!) take over finances after our first child was born, and just recently come to find out everything had gone to hell in a handbasket because he thought our bill due dates were "flexible". SO, I took everything back over. What I did:
Created excel spreadsheet of all bills, relative due dates, and tracking of every payment Pear budget- a very cheap online budgeting site where we enter everything Put all bill due dates in my calendar on my phone so they pop up. Some he still pays but I remind him every month until it is done. I give us about 5 days leeway each month so if he slips up it still won't be late. We started this 3 months ago and everything has been on track. We are working really hard on paying off all our debt and so far so good. I also put us both on an allowance every week and he hands over all money that isn't for his allowance over to me. Maybe some of this could help you too. GOod luck!! |
Anonymous
|
1) Pay online, for everything that lets you. Set up recurring payments to coincide with the regular paycheck (for example, car/student loans and childcare come out of my paycheck since it's predictible).
2) Have bill reminders sent to your email re. the credit cards. Pay those out of your husband's paychecks - just pay what you can every month. A few months of interest won't kill you. 3) Consolidate credit cards. One for household, one for his business. That's it. No Macy's cards, JC Penny cards, etc. - right now, they are more than you can handle. Keep them open, but don't use them - literally put them in a drawer (REMOVE FROM WALLET/PURSE!). 4) Put your household expenses on a credit card. That way, you can 'pay' for them when DH gets a paycheck. Mine has his own business too, and he pays himself about once a month (when I remind him). I don't have to worry about depleting the small cash pile from his last paycheck in the meantime if all the regular expenses are on my credit card, or worrying if one purchase will undercut a bill that's due. 5) Make a 'to-do' pile for ad hoc bills. Be diligent about going through the pile of mail; trash the junk and put any bills in the 'to-do' bin. Then when you have time, go through it and make sure it's all paid. And I also agree, quicken is too much to worry about. Plus, if you're paying most everything with credit, it tracks categories for you. |