X-Ray Glasses

4 thoughts on “X-Ray Glasses”

  1. I never comment (love your site!) but felt compelled to comment and tell you how much I am really enjoying your entries on budgeting, etc. Looking forward to the next installment! Thanks!

  2. @meg thanks!

    @Darren: We found MS Money (and similar programs) far too granular for us. We don’t much care how much we spend at grocery stores vs. department stores vs. corner stores – and our visa offers a similar service.

    And even tracking it ourselves, what we were really missing was guidance on how to sustainably budget for the debt repayment & some savings along with covering our fixed expenses.

  3. (I’m using terms defined here)

    We’ve never really tried the zero-based or flex budget. We’ve analyzed months retroactively to get an idea of where we are and where the money’s going, but we’ve never actually put cash in jars or any of that. In general we keep to the reverse budget, or the “pay yourself first” budget. Money automatically gets taken out and put into savings, debt repayment (student loans), etc., and we get to spend the rest. Sometimes we need to make adjustments to the amounts, but for years this system has worked really well for us. That said, besides paying for the wedding we’ve never been in a situation where we’re consistently spending more per month than we’re making.
    .-= Chris´s last blog ..Twenty Questions =-.

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