Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Geez I Need a Budget . . .

Recently C and I have been spending a lot of money.

We spent quite a bit on our 4 week vacation. It was a once in a lifetime trip that we wanted to take before we have kids (thinking about having kids in a few years).

Then we just bought a new bed from Costco. This was sorely needed since we had been sleeping on a bed purchased from craigslist 2 years ago for only $25. In this case, I really do think we got what we paid for. The bed totally sagged in the middle if we put it on a metal bedframe, so we had to leave it on the floor in order to not wake up every night with back pain. We only woke up occasionally with back pain, but it was becoming more frequent, so time to pull the trigger. Incidentally we had received a wedding gift of cash with the stipulation that the money was for a new bed, so you can consider this an expense that we had money allocated for.

We just had some semi unexpected auto repairs. Unexpected since you never know what your car is going to break down, but only "semi" since the car is 12 years old.

Now C is making noises about getting a new computer. Granted, right now we don't have any working computers that we own. Both C and I have work laptops, that we also use for personal needs. I agree we need a computer, but on top of all of our other recent expenditures, it seems like a lot! This will be especially critical if I want to seriously explore my career options.

Of course, we are against going into debt to purchase travel/consumer goods, so that's not an issue. I'm just worried that we're not saving enough for our house down payment.

I think I'm going to ask for Quicken for Christmas!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, budgets rock :) you could try creating your own while you wait for Xmas to come too, or even check out youneedabudget.com or mint.com, yodlee.com, etc.

i find that creating my own to just glance at once or twice a month is nice and easy...even in google docs!

Anonymous said...

I have used both Quicken and Money and prefer Money. I have also heard there is some free financial software out there that is good, but I don't know the name.

Anonymous said...

Oh, nice idea... Quicken for Christmas. I'm sure you know Quicken Online is now free but the desktop version I could still ask for Christmas.

Google Politics said...

Hi Calgirl,

I would suggest checking out my post on budgeting and it also provides a really useful Excel spreadsheet for making a budget.

It has saved me thousands!

http://www.savingsguide.com.au/personal-budget-spreadsheet/

Drop me a line on my blog sometime,

Regards,

Alex

calgirlfinance said...

J., I am still hesitant about putting all my $ info online, so I'm a bit hesitant about that.

adventuresandmusings, thanks for letting me know your preference for Money, but did you hear that they are no longer putting updates for Money out there?


frugalchick, thanks for letting me know that Quicken online is now free.

GooglePolitics, I will check out your post. I have also been thinking about using Pearbudget.