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Anyone love budgeting/paying bills?  

post #1 of 26
10/25/06 at 4:29pm
Thread Starter 
Hi. A recent thread of mine got moved to this forum and I'd never been in here before.

I'm just wondering if anyone likes to do the budgeting or paying the bills? I do all the budgeting and bill paying in my family because I love it. I look at our situation everyday for fun and see if there's one more thing I can tweak. I love to watch the Suzi Orman show and read articles and books on finances.

Anyone else around here like this?

What I can't figure out is investments. I've got savings, insurance, and budgeting down--but investing is a big scary hole.

ETA: No, we're not rich. I've been like since my boyfriend left me when I was 3 mos. pregnant (5 years ago), broke, terribly in debt, car in repossesion, and I had to make serious changes.
post #2 of 26
10/25/06 at 4:45pm
I don't mind budgeting when we have money...I hate it when we're broke!
post #3 of 26
10/25/06 at 8:15pm
I am getting into as of late. I used to hate it and DH used to always do it, but work is really hard for him and this is something I could take off his plate, besides I'm the one who spends the money anyway. It is frustrating when you have no money. But it is so much easier to keep myself from overspending if I'm on top of exactly how much we have budgeted, how much we've spent, etc. What I find gratifying is coming to a birthday or christmas (starting shopping now) and knowing I've budgeted for it and then coming under budget.

We have money invested for our long term goals (retirement, college, etc) but month to month we are tight and I have to keep myself seriously in check or we could easily eat into our investments rather than continuing to grow them.
post #4 of 26
10/25/06 at 8:58pm
My life would be so much easier if I could convince DH that living frugally is FUN! I see it as a challenge and feel proud when we meet our goals, but DH, even though he plays along and tries to follow the budget, always kind of rolls his eyes and chuckles at my mock enthusiasm, LOL!
post #5 of 26
10/26/06 at 4:36am
I don't know if I love it, but I have been known to get obsessive about it. I really do like the feeling that all of our bills are taken care of every month with no problem through our budget though.
post #6 of 26
10/26/06 at 9:45am
My dh loves to pay the bills and do the budget.

I mean, he LOVES to do it. We actually had talked about it last night. We have a budget that is pretty tight (dh is getting his phd). We have a spread sheet where we plug in everything we buy (by catagory) and it totals what we have spent for the month and whats left.

I enjoy looking at it whats left. I love when we do well with food or bills and there is money left to save.
post #7 of 26
10/26/06 at 10:11am
I love to budget. I love to pay bills. I love walking to the mailbox and picking out the bills knowing that I have enough cash set aside for them. We are living close to the bone while we pay off a lot of debt, so every opportunity to save spend less means that I am one dollar closer to having moutntains of student loans paid off.

And I live for payday. All that planning and scheming and tinkering and then bam! I send it all out to our various debts and bills. Sooooooo gooooood.
post #8 of 26
10/26/06 at 10:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ~Quse~ View Post
I don't mind budgeting when we have money...I hate it when we're broke!
:
post #9 of 26
10/26/06 at 10:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruthiegirl View Post
I love to budget. I love to pay bills. I love walking to the mailbox and picking out the bills knowing that I have enough cash set aside for them. We are living close to the bone while we pay off a lot of debt, so every opportunity to save spend less means that I am one dollar closer to having moutntains of student loans paid off.

And I live for payday. All that planning and scheming and tinkering and then bam! I send it all out to our various debts and bills. Sooooooo gooooood.
:

I get a sick (good) feeling when I can pay something off. Today, I'm going to make a deposit so that tomorrow, I can pay off our last credit card!!!! : :
post #10 of 26
10/26/06 at 11:27am
Congrats Betsy!

I like paying bills. Budgeting I'm not so good at but DH does the spread sheet thing and we work on it together. It's some of our "together" time.
post #11 of 26
10/26/06 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruthiegirl View Post
I love to budget. I love to pay bills. I love walking to the mailbox and picking out the bills knowing that I have enough cash set aside for them. We are living close to the bone while we pay off a lot of debt, so every opportunity to save spend less means that I am one dollar closer to having moutntains of student loans paid off.

And I live for payday. All that planning and scheming and tinkering and then bam! I send it all out to our various debts and bills. Sooooooo gooooood.
:
I like it too, it's waaaay better than homework!
post #12 of 26
10/26/06 at 1:52pm
Can I just say that I love to be quoted.

And congrats Betsy!!! We just paid off our last credit card and it was an epic moment. Never, ever again will I have credit card debt.
post #13 of 26
10/26/06 at 1:56pm
Even when money is tight I find it relaxing! I am SUPER anal about it all though!
post #14 of 26
10/26/06 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BetsyS View Post
:

I get a sick (good) feeling when I can pay something off. Today, I'm going to make a deposit so that tomorrow, I can pay off our last credit card!!!!

THAT'S what keeps me going! We haven't paid one off yet, but we will soon, and I'm looking forward to that feeling!
post #15 of 26
10/26/06 at 2:08pm
I love it too! I'm a big planner and list-maker, so it's right up my alley!
post #16 of 26
10/26/06 at 2:26pm
This is funny, but I think I'm just starting to see what all the fuss is about. My dh is super finance/frugal guy. I'm the eye rolling spending money for fun, wife.

In an attempt to help dh, (and get him to lighten up, and off my back) I got Quicken. I thought it would show him we are doing fine so relax. Well... I am totally hooked! Entering all our info, setting up monthly bills, projected cash flows. Every day I will look at it, see whats new, what's comming up next.

It is so fun, I just want to make to good numbers grow and the negative ones shrink.
post #17 of 26
10/26/06 at 2:56pm
Thread Starter 
Yay! I knew I couldn't be the only one.

I definitely agree, it's funner when there's at least a little bit of money to move around. But, meeting goals and feeling successful is great.

I too am a list maker so maybe that's where the enjoyment comes from?
post #18 of 26
10/26/06 at 3:25pm
1
post #19 of 26
10/26/06 at 3:52pm
I too love to budget and pay bills. I take pride in knowing that I can pay for our needs (our wants is another story but I don't think you ever have enough money for that). I grew up with a single mom and it was always very stressful in our house. Money was tight. It makes me feel good that I can pay for things and not worry. We are not at all rich either and that is what makes it a challenge.
post #20 of 26
10/26/06 at 11:42pm
that's funny. i'm the same way. i handle all of the bills and just figured out a new budget for us because i'm going to be a SAHM offically today (yah) so we are going to be brrrrroooookkkkkkke but i'm still excited to put our new budget in reality. it's going to be a challenge but totally worth it
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