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Budgeting

Manage Your Money Week 2 – Teamwork, Accountability, and Kids

by Brad Chaffee on March 8, 2010

in Manage Your Money 2010

WOW! Out of the 44 that signed up, only 12 showed up, leaving 32 people MIA. That’s alright though, there is still a chance to redeem yourself. Don’t give up before you even start! How are you going to change things if you don’t do the work? I know it’s hard! I know you’re scared! I know you’re intimidated! But you have to make some changes, and you may as well start now. You are still welcome, and can win some prizes. Make the changes now!

To the ones that showed up, and blew me away with their honesty and willingness to examine themselves and their habits, CONGRATULATIONS!! I hope that last week’s lesson inspired you to think a bit more about what you spend your money on each month. There really is no right or wrong answer, as long as you accept that your decisions will take you where you end up. If you don’t like where you end up, you have to make different decisions.

This Weeks Prize Winners!

(via Random.org)

FPU DVD Lesson: Cash Flow Planning – DOROTHY
Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey – JULIE
$25 Staples Gift Card – JULIE (GO JULIE!)
$25 Amazon Gift Card - CHRIS HOLDHEIDE
BONUS SURPRISE BOOK: This week, KIM, was hand-picked for quoting me almost exactly:

“You can avoid a potential crisis, by understanding that saving money for your future is not going to keep you from enjoying life, it will instead give you a life to enjoy.”

There were a few of you that also got the right answer but I was looking for the exact phrase from the article. Thank you all for being so awesome in taking this challenge seriously. I am proud of you all!

PLEASE NOTICE: I moved the list of sponsors and prizes to a special page here on EOD. Please be sure to check out who made this first Manage Your Money challenge so very special!

Winner of $100 From the EOD Subscriber Challenge

SHERRY!! Congratulations on completing the Improve Yourself Challenge, and participating all the way through. Only 5 out of 11 participated at all. Sherry is $100 richer!!

Be sure to thank the sponsors!

Manage Your Money Challenge #2

By now you should have budgeted your money on paper on purpose, closely analyzed wants versus needs, and today we will be focusing on teamwork, accountability, and kids.

TEAMWORK

Anyone who has followed this blog for more than a month, has likely heard me talk about the importance of teamwork. I believe it is the glue that holds any financial plan in place, and I could go even further by saying that it can even keep your marriage in place. It’s not the only solution to your money problems when dealing with your marriage, but it does give you lots of room to grow together. If you are not walking together, you are walking away from each other.

The problem with teamwork is that it requires TWO responsible adults to work together for the common good of the family. Unfortunately, many times, one or both parties involved can be immature, and do not really understand the gravity of their role in the financial affairs. If you are the one who puts all of the responsibility on your spouse, then you are acting very selfishly, and may not even realize it. To prove this point, go ask a single person how hard it is to do it alone. Ask them if they would prefer to have help when it came to their finances. Chances are you will hear pain and frustration coming through. Is that what kind of pressure you want to put on your spouse?

Read a guest post from me at Engaged Marriage that gives you a plan of action: You May Be Married, But Are You Truly United? Pay special close attention to the list of things you want to practice daily near the bottom. You will need to, for your personal challenge.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Married folks have accountability, and even they struggle with this money stuff. How do you think single people feel? They certainly have it harder than us married folks. I have to answer to my wife, and that’s not always pleasant, especially if I do something stupid. Just that fact alone makes me LESS LIKELY to do something stupid. If you are single you do not have that built-in accountability so you have to WORK HARDER at it.

You have to hold yourself to a higher standard, because if you don’t, no one else will!! However, there are some things you can do to hold yourself more accountable. One of them being to pick an accountability buddy. Someone you love, trust, and that will be honest with you. Don’t pick your shopping buddy!! Talk with the person and ask them if they mind h0lding you accountable.

The other thing is to set up some questions for yourself that YOU MUST answer before making a purchase not in the budget.

Something like:

Can I wait?
Will buying this keep me from reaching my financial goals?
Can this money be better spent on something more important?
If I buy this how will it impact my budget?

Sometimes you just need a healthy reminder of what your goals are. Remind yourself as often as possible!

WHERE DO THE KIDS FIT IN?

Now whether you are married or single, kids can have a huge impact on your money. Is that an understatement or what? Haha! There are lots of ways our children tend to affect our budget, and a lot of times, in order to cope, we say things like YES, when we really should be saying NO! Are you guilty of that? (my hand is raised high, because sometimes I am a complete sucker. My wife will tell you that!)

Your kids want this and they want that! That will NEVER change! What can change though is using the word NO more often. It is kind of hard when you are standing there looking at that beautiful, but very manipulative smiling face staring back at you, but we can’t let our kids spend our money. They are innocent and have no clue as to what it means to be on a budget. Sometimes they do though, and have learned that you can be pretty easy to persuade. You have to stop that!

I hear more stories of people claiming that the budget was busted due to not being able to tell their kids NO! We cannot let our children dictate how the money is spent, and we can’t let them bully us into submission. If they have you feeling guilty every time you try to say no, they are in control. Gain control of your money, YOU are the adult.

The #1 BEST way to teach them the value of a dollar, is to teach them about money. Teach them about income, expenses, taxes, and explain to them the benefits of budgeting. Welcome them to the short budget meetings every month. Help them understand early on, why you cannot just have everything you want, just because you want it. Isn’t that why most of us got into our financial predicaments in the first place?

Perhaps the combination of credit cards, and parents not talking to their kids about money is why American households have a negative savings rate. We grow up to think that we can have anything we want, when we want it, so we never even consider saving money as an option to living paycheck to paycheck. STOP THE CYCLE, OR IT WILL CONTINUE!

TODAY’S CHALLENGE

If you are married, you must go to my guest post over at Engaged Marriage, and start working on that list immediately. Leave a comment below answering these two questions: (worth one entry)

What do you struggle with the most on the list? (ex. being patient etc.)
How do you plan on getting better at that one thing?

BONUS: Set aside 15 minutes to get to know your spouse. (worth 5 extra entries)

Find out whether you are on the same page. Get to know your spouse! It’s important! Leave a comment outlining how it went.. Remember to be honest here. Your goal is to change things, not pretend you participated in a family meeting.

====================================================

If you are single, you must write yourself a list of at least three accountability questions in the comments section below. (worth one entry)

BONUS: Find yourself an accountability buddy! That simple. (worth 5 extra entries)

Make your accountability buddy count. Make sure they are willing to hold you accountable. Make sure you can call them when in stress. Make sure you trust this person and will be able to open up.

====================================================

If you have children: (worth one entry)

Do you give into them more than you should?
Have you ever talked to them about money?

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Oh yeah, you have until midnight on Thursday to enter to win prizes!!

That’s it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and answers on this. This is an area of financial management that can make or break you. If you are not on the same page as your spouse, can’t hold yourself accountable, and let your kids spend your money, you are going to struggle with your budget. You may as well get better at it!

Be sure to visit the Sponsors page to learn more about the folks that were kind enough to offer such great prizes!!

Manage Your Money Pre-Challenge Post: On Paper On Purpose

by Brad Chaffee on February 26, 2010

in manage your money, planning tools

Hello all! I hope you are all excited to be taking part in the first ever Manage Your Money Challenge here on Enemy of Debt. If you have not already signed up, please do so now. I am excited to be working beside you on this. Now before we get started I want to say this. I do not inherently love budgeting. BUT, there are a lot of things that I have to do in life that do not thrill me but are necessary. So I do them.

Budgeting can be simple, hard, boring, exciting, or as my good buddy at Budgets Are Sexy puts it; budgets can be SEXY! Believe it or not, the sexiness comes from knowing you have a plan, and watching the fruits of your labor develop into success. That is definitely sexy.

I recall times while we were paying our debt off, that I was actually excited to sit down and figure out the budget. Why? Because I couldn’t wait to see how much money would be put towards our goals and desires! That excited me! It should excite you too, but if it doesn’t, give it some time. I have found that when budgeting, you have to get past the “awkward” phase, which is when things seem chaotic and certainly frustrating, before you can really appreciate what having a budget can do for you. Dave Ramsey suggests that this phase lasts about 3-4 months, and I agree with that, but also think that some people may need a little more time. The key is not to give up.

Before we get started on Monday, I want to go over three things I think are very important, in helping you rock this budgeting stuff. I want to add that I will not be using this Manage Your Money Challenge to tell you HOW to spend your money. I want to focus on YOU having a plan, that is it. How you spend your money is up to you, and should be based on your own families goals and desires.

REMEMBER: To be eligible for prizes for each week you will need to participate in the comments section of each Manage Your Money post. The prizes giveaway starts officially next week.

Budget Your Money On Paper, On Purpose

ZERO-BASED BUDGETING

No matter what budgeting system I use, I tend to adapt that system to allow me to use the zero-based budget that I have come to know and love. What is a zero-based budget? Put simply, it is a budget where you “spend” your money for the month until it is ALL gone. In other words, if your income is $5,000 per month, you would tell every single dollar where to go until you reach $0.

So pretend that you already have your income for the month in your hand. Spend it!

First Task: Spend March’s income until you spend it all.

SPEND IT BEFORE THE MONTH BEGINS

No matter what budgeting system you decide to use, you should always have a very simple budget on paper to work from. Once you do this initially, the rest of the months should be easier since for most people, month to month expenses generally stay the same with few exceptions.

Second Task: Spend your income on paper.

***Task one and two can be done together.

FREE POCKETSMITH (8 EVENT BUDGETING)

Comment from Jo:

“So far so good. Already had a paper budget which made input easy except I am struggling a bit with the 8 event limit as it doesn’t really allow for a detailed financial snapshot. Any suggestions?”

My response:

Yeah I can see how that might make it a bit tough. The only thing I can think of at the moment would be to use the calendar to post categories.

Housing – Mortgage/rent/insurance/maintenance/repairs

Utilities – electric/gas/phone/water/sewage/internet etc.

Food – groceries

Transportation – fuel/maintenance/repair/bus fare/taxi/auto insurance etc.

Misc – Toiletries/medication etc.

Subscriptions – Netflix/blockbuster/cable tv etc.

Entertainment – eating out/fun etc.

Debt – credit cards/student loans/car loans/furniture loans etc. (if you had to borrow to get it should go here—except for mortgages)

That’s how I would do it under those circumstances, and I would track individual accounts and spending on my paper budget for the time being.

USING POCKETSMITH

I am still learning the ropes over at Pocketsmith, but I have to say I really like the visualization that using the calendar-based budget gives me. I have been able to combine both systems together in order to take advantage of spending my money down to zero, as well as using the visual instruments that Pocketsmith offers.

Now it’s time to transfer the paper budget done in task one and two, on to Pocketsmith.

Go to Pocketsmith and login.
Click on Forecast Calendars.

Now before you start putting in information for the month of March, you may need to input your starting balance in your checking account. Remember you want to spend ALL of your money on purpose. If you have nothing entered for the month of February simply add income on the last day of February, that reflects your balance that will rollover into March. You will notice that when you do so, the month of March will start out with that amount.

Add your income.

Next, you will want to create income for any day that you will receive a paycheck, OR any additional money that you will earn. If you get paid on the 1st and 15th, then go to those dates and click “create”. Click the income selection and enter the amount of your paycheck. ***If your paychecks are always different then enter in the amount you know you will receive, or make your best guess. Don’t worry this can be updated as you get your paycheck by simply editing the information.

Add all monthly expenses.

Now go in and click “create” for each of the days you have known expenses. I usually enter them in order of importance. Food, shelter, utilities, transportation, etc. (See example list below.)

Monthly grocery budget (recommendation: $125 per person)
Mortgage or Rent
Electric and Gas
Phone Bill
Water/Trash
Clothing
Transportation/Fuel
Household Supplies
Internet/Cable
Subscriptions
Entertainment
ETC.

For items that do not have due dates for them, like groceries, you have a few choices depending on your habits. Do you buy groceries weekly, bi-weekly, or once a month. (Is there a specific day?) If so, create the expense for that day. If not, pick a day.

Be sure to enter every single dollar you will be spending for the month of March into the calendar. The great thing about Pocketsmith is that you can set income and expenses to automatically show up for following months. In other words, you only have to do this once, with the exception of any small changes from month to month.

Third Task: Transfer your budget information into Pocketsmith’s Forecast Calendar.

That is it for today folks! This is the most important part as it will make your budgeting experience go a lot smoother. Usually the first part is the most time consuming so keep that in mind before you second-guess your decision to do this. PLEASE use the comments section of this post to ask questions or offer any kind of support for others taking this same journey. Let’s build a community around good money management. Let’s start now!

The March 2010 “Manage Your Money” Challenge: Featuring Pocketsmith – Are You In Or Out?

by Brad Chaffee on February 4, 2010

in Featured, budgeting

Howdy folks! Two of my 2010 resolutions for Enemy of Debt in the year 2010 were to 1) Engage subscribers more actively and 2) Build an active and supportive EOD community. That’s why I have decided to ask you to participate in a new feature post at EOD called “Manage Your Money”.

The March 2010 Manage Your Money Challenge

FEATURING: Pocketsmith (A calendar-based budgeting system)

This will be a 31 day challenge, that begins on March 1st and ends on March 31st. You may sign up now for your FREE Basic Membership, to familiarize yourself with the program. I have been given a complimentary 12 Month Premium Membership so that I may evaluate and learn the calendar-based budgeting system for myself. I will use this to my advantage, in order to better help you with your questions about the site and the budgeting software.

Personally, even with my limited experience using this system, I think I am going to like it. Visualization is the key and the one thing I like already is the fact that you can look at a calendar and see all income, and every expense right there. There are multiple features that help you plan and forecast your financial plan down to the detail. So far I like it.

Remember that any budgeting system you use takes time to learn, and it usually takes more than one month to master the skill. Let’s learn as much we can together! Are you with me?

If you have a budget that you already use, consider trying this for at least one month. I am very used to my EOD Deluxe Budget 2.0, but have decided that it will be more beneficial for me to give this a try. The way I see it, the more you try the more you know what you like. This budget may be for you, but you won’t know until you try it. I am looking for it to save me time, and keep me motivated to stick with my robust financial plan.

Sponsorship

Currently, Pocketsmith.com is sponsoring this challenge by offering a very generous 12-MONTH POCKETSMITH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP upgrade to three of you absolutely FREE. That’s a $180 value—$60 per winner! I will be searching for other sponsors to enable me to giveaway additional prizes as well. Any other sponsors, and prizes, will be announced on the March 1st launch post. I myself, will be giving away four FPU DVD lessons and a No More Mondays book by Dan Miller.

March has four full weeks plus two days in it, so I will put together four different lessons/challenges, as well as a bonus challenge. The winners of the 12-MONTH POCKETSMITH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIPS will be announced on March 31st, but I am hoping to have multiple winners each week, depending on the level of sponsorship I receive. (details below)

How You Can Help

You can be a sponsor by pledging to give personal finance books, gift cards, basically anything you want to give away, provided it is appropriate. Please email me at freedom@enemyofdebt.com or contact me on Twitter at @enemyofdebt. You will of course gain a spot/link on each “Manage Your Money” post, as well as a short bio to help spread the word about your website or blog. (*website or blog must be approved by me.*)

Current Prize List: ($260 in prizes)

Weekly Prizes (March 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th)

Financial Peace University DVD Lesson: Cash Flow Planning (8th) $20 Value
Financial Peace University DVD Lesson: Dumping Debt (15th) Awesomely inspirational!
Financial Peace University DVD Lesson: Relating With Money (22nd)
Financial Peace University DVD Lesson: The Great Misunderstanding (29th)
Total Money Makeover (Dave Ramsey) book
Financial Peace Revisited (Dave Ramsey) book
Financial Peace Junior Kit (ages 3-12)
No More Dreaded Mondays (Dan Miller) book
A Gift To My Children (Jim Rogers) book
$25 Gift Card (Staples)
$25 Gift Card (Amazon)
Two iPhone “Pay Off Debt” Debt Snowball Apps
Two Android “Pay Off Debt” Debt Snowball Apps

Updated: February 16th

Budgeting, paying off debt, relating to family and friends with money, and giving are such great lessons to learn!

Bonus Prize (March 31st)

Financial Peace University Membership Kit ($100 value)

Grand Prizes (March 31st)

12 MONTH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP to Pocketsmith ($60 value)
12 MONTH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP to Pocketsmith
12 MONTH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP to Pocketsmith

To Enter

To enter this challenge all you have to do is:

subscribe to Enemy of Debt. (There will be a secret password at the end of your email/rss feed that you will need to claim your prize.)
go to Pocketsmith.com to sign up for your FREE Basic Membership.
leave a comment below stating your intention to actively participate.

To Be Eligible For Prizes

ANY Prize – YOU MUST complete all three entry requirements above.
Weekly Prize – YOU MUST participate in post for that week.
Bonus Prize – YOU MUST participate in 3 out of the 5 weeks. (week 5 only consist of 2 days)
Grand Prize – YOU MUST participate in all 5 weeks.

Questions, Answers, and General Support Help

One of the things I want to accomplish with this, other than introducing you to a great budgeting system, will be to strengthen and provide community support here on Enemy of Debt. We will be using the comments section of each post to offer support to each other. Any questions, answers, or helpful info about Pocketsmith’s budgeting system and website, will be compiled into one post for later review by any and all readers. Your participation is appreciated. Pocketsmith also has plenty of support help to guide you in the process.

That’s pretty much it! I hope to see you participate and become an active subscriber in your journey to better financial management.

See you on March 1st! Please spread the word, thanks.

photo credit

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12 Steps To Debt Freedom

by Brad Chaffee on May 27, 2009

in Money Management

What Are The 12 Steps To Becoming Debt Free?

What started out as just a name for my Monday edition of sharing links with you from around the PF blogosphere, has turned into a project. I started to think about my focus on the debt free message and then it hit me – I am addicted to becoming and staying debt free! Are you addicted to becoming and staying debt free? If so, these are the principles that you could follow to achieve such a thing.

You have probably heard about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and how they really help these folks cope from day to day. I just created 12 principles very loosely based on those of AA, with a debt free spin. I really just got the idea of where and how to list them, and then I just started thinking of all the things one might need to do and realize, to actually become and stay debt free.

Are you addicted to becoming DEBT FREE too? Consider this the place to come to announce it to the world! When you are ready to join in, type the following, in the comments section below:

Hi my name is (your name), and I am addicted to becoming/remaining DEBT FREE!!

For the people who immediately want to analyze the differences between AA and this. This was never intended to be just like AA. The name being used is to declare my addiction, not to be related with that of AA. In this case I WANT to be addicted to becoming debt free so the principles shouldn’t reflect how to not be addicted, like they are in AA, but what they might be for someone who is addicted. That’s it. Debt Free Addicts Anonymous is a group of people who are addicted to becoming debt free.

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7 Tips To Make Your Budget Work

March 10, 2009

1. Maintain An Emergency Fund Of $1,000
This is very important! If you do not have an adequate emergency fund when life happens to you, you will feel defeated. It has a very negative impact on your desire to budget when you have to reorganize EVERYTHING to pay for emergencies. If you have an emergency fund [...]

10 comments Get Motivated!

EOD Deluxe Budget 2.0

February 22, 2009

EOD Budget has finally been upgraded!!
(EOD Deluxe Budget Version 2.0)

If you have been wondering where I have been, here is your answer. I have been working hard to upgrade the EOD Budget so that your budgeting experience will be easier, better, and faster! I have added lots of new features including an Allocated Spending Plan [...]

6 comments Get Motivated!

Monkey See, Monkey Don’t!

February 6, 2009

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DON’T

I have said before that Washington is in desperate need of a Total Money Makeover. If you have been keeping up with current events in Washington then you probably are aware of the current spending proposal to “stimulate” the economy. If not, then you should be, because your tax dollars are being [...]

0 comments Get Motivated!

Here Is Your Financial Blueprint

August 30, 2008

Here Is Your Financial Blueprint
courtesy of Enemy of Debt
created by Brad Chaffee
Well the time has finally come! You no longer have any excuse at all as to not having a budget. I have created a worksheet for you to use to make budgeting fast and easy. It is up to you to take advantage of [...]

2 comments Get Motivated!

If My Words Were A Hand, They’d Be Slapping Some Sense Into You!

August 28, 2008

STOP BORROWING MONEY!!!
Just to clear things up, the title isn’t to be taken literally. It’s just my way of grabbing your attention and telling you that if you are in debt, you need to hear this!! So LISTEN UP! This is perhaps the most important thing to learn after getting yourself [...]

5 comments Get Motivated!

The “B” Word!

August 22, 2008

Yeah I said it, the “B” word….Budget. My FPU class just finished Lesson Three called Cash Flow Planning, and when most of us think about a budget, all kinds of negative thoughts surface. First we think it will keep us from having fun. If you are like me then you may [...]

1 comment Get Motivated!

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