Are you trying to get organized for the new school year? I tell you what- things just get so crazy with work, school, sports, dance, friends…. If it isn’t Crazy Hair day it is wear patriotic colors day or snack mom day or class picture day- whew!
I have been working hard to keep us on track this year and one thing that I feel like I finally got a handle on is the finances.
I thought I would mention how I keep track of all the finances and maybe this will either inspire you to get a little more organized or maybe you will share some of your great tips to keep on top of things!
Just click below to get the details.
I do want to say that although I try to make things look nice, this binder is meant to be functional and not necessarily the most lovely thing ever.
The upside to Pinterest is that many of the printables are free and beautifully designed so that makes things easy (all sources I used will be linked at the bottom) but the downside is that I often feel like every single thing in our house has to be perfect (sigh).
Unfortunately perfect doesn’t live here anymore so this is a no fuss and simple binder to pull together ;).
In our house we have a division of labor, my husband pays all the bills and at the end of the month I balance the checkbooks and I enter everything into Quickbooks.
So this is how we keep all that important stuff straight.
I don’t need a lot of stuff for my binder like Post Its and pens and such since I keep this at my desk. So the front of the binder just has a simple little Avery stick on pouch for any misc. items that I am working on. Currently I have a rebate receipt that needs to be sent off, or I might have bank statements I am working on, bills that need to be paid etc… The pouch usually holds the checkbook but I took that out for photographs.
The next section is the calendar. My husband likes to write all the dates in that bills are due- this calendar is only for finances and it isn’t our family schedule so it is pretty empty. I have 6 months printed out at a time so I also jot down property taxes, car renewals and other expenses that don’t come up every single month.
And the next stop is the bill payment checklist. This is just a year at a glance checklist to make sure everything is paid on time. My husband actually pays the bills so he uses the calendar I mentioned above, but I use this when I am balancing the checkbooks just to be certain we didn’t forget anything.
One little tip is that the dividers have a section for notes on the back side, I use Washi tape and make little notes to myself or I stick Post Its on the back. You can kind of see my little Washi tape note in the top left there with a log in I never seem to remember ;).
The nice thing about Washi is that it just pulls right off when you don’t need it anymore.
Next is the monthly budget worksheet. There are lots of free printable budget worksheets out there but honestly I would encourage you to just make one of your own. This might be just pen to paper or I just typed one up really quickly in Word. Every person will have slightly different expenses so I don’t think there is one budget form that will work for everyone.
I print it out fresh each month and just change the month at the top of the sheet. This is the September sheet before it was filled out and underneath is the finished August sheet, July sheet etc… So I have a little quick reference of the year at my fingertips.
I include all the fixed expenses such as the Mortgage, Utilities, School Tuition, Insurance etc… I also include the children’s activities under fixed so Spanish and Dance lessons that we pay for monthly are also included. I have the variable expenses under that and those include Groceries, Charitable Gifts (our tithing etc…), our monthly retirement contribution and then a Misc. category. This is just a little at a glance sheet so any clothing, vacations, dining out and so on gets lumped into the Misc.
My husband and I typically talk a little about what we anticipate spending Misc. money on that month and then we assign an amount. We try to stick to what we budgeted but obviously this is the category that can get out of control really quickly.
There is a total at the bottom for what we plan to spend that month and then when I balance the checkbook, I jot down the actual that we spent. At that point, we can evaluate if we were on track or way off. The last slot is the difference of what we budgeted vs. the actual expense.
Also in this section are the monthly bank statements. I print them out each month and use a highlighter to work down each transaction we made. I enter every transaction into Quickbooks so we have a detailed record of where all our money went. Once the checkbook is balanced, I staple the statements together and hole punch and put them in this section. Really I could probably toss them all out but I like to have them just in case I want to reference back to something later in the year.
And this sounds like a ton of effort but honestly once you set all your accounts up online (in Quickbooks or whatever) it really doesn’t take much time to maintain it monthly.
The next section is just a quick networth summary. Now I am not Warren Buffet or anything but I like to see where our retirement accounts and savings accounts stand at the end of the month.
We did the debt snowball several years ago so the only debt we have is the mortgage and I like to see how that is going as well. California is a very volatile real estate market and our interest rate is crazy low so we actually deviated from the debt snowball on this one point (sorry Dave Ramsey). If you do have credit cards and car loans and such, this would be a great spot to keep track of debts and repayment plan progress.
Oh and I do have some sheet protectors located here and there to wrangle in stray stuff. This is a sheet protector that holds all those little receipts from Goodwill. I just used Washi tape to make a little label for the sheet but for the most part you can see exactly what everything is at a glance.
And the last spot is personal stuff mostly for the kids. I try to keep this just finances and bills but this one section also has important stuff to keep track of. The top is a 2013 calendar and under that is a 2014 calendar. I make notes to myself of dental appointments, medical appointments, shots, eye exams etc…
I have a terrible time remembering this stuff but my littlest wears glasses so she needs to go every 3 months to the Optometrist. When we have an appointment I come home and make a note to myself about when I need to set the next appointment for to help me keep track. The girls just had dental checkups and cleanings recently so I have noted in Feb 2014 that it is time again for all that.
Behind that are a few more sheet protectors with extracurricular activities and school info sheets. The orientation packets for both of my children’s teachers have a sheet protector and then I have one for things like Dance Lessons. We have the little contract, the schedule of classes (in case I need to do a makeup class), receipts for the annual showcase costumes and stuff like that. I try to keep it at just what we really need so the binder isn’t crazy overflowing.
And that is it! How I keep it all organized and together! Now that the holidays are approaching I will be adding the Holiday Gift Worksheet very soon to keep track of the presents I buy for people and tuck away.
And if you are interested in some of the resources for the printables:
- Free Monthly 2013 Calendar from TomKat Studios (Update: Here is the 2014 version)
- Free Bill Payment Checklist from Pinch a Little, Save a Lot
- Monthly Budget Worksheet- I typed up in Word
- Annual 2013/2014 Calendar (tons to choose from here)
And if you are interested in more organizing ideas to tame the paperwork Monster:
Learn How to Get Started Menu Planning Here
And some tips on How to be More Productive Everyday
Del says
I came to your site to track down your chore chart you made a few months ago as my 2 year old wants one like his sister and found this!! I have a binder that has a monthly expense list but it did not occur to me to add what we budget vs what was actually spent. I think this is what I have been missing so simple yet so needed!! I also use Excel as my checkbook but wanted to know if you need to upgrade your Quickbooks every year? I used to use Quicken but it became more of a pain as it never downloaded correctly and it made me upgrade all the time. So is Quickbooks the same way?
Charlene says
Del,
I use Quickbooks and I do not love it. I have to use something for the blog though because there are so many expenses and such to keep track of. I made a second account for our personal and I don’t find it especially user friendly. I don’t know how often you need to upgrade- our software is fairly current and in the past I have had software that was like 5 years out of date :P. I considered Excel for tracking expenses too but the thing that puts me off is that if we have 100 transactions in a month, I can just see that check register becoming ridiculously long. Do you find that to be the case?
Oh and the software was fairly expensive- I bought it with discounts and rewards and all that at the office supply store but I think it was still like $129 or something.
Del says
My spreadsheet is super long. I intended to create a new sheet every month and just carry over the balance from the last to avoid that. However I have not had the discipline to do so. Oooh I just had a thought…. I could do that and add my intended budget and actual $ spent to the bottom. The main thing I like about QB is that u categorize everything so you can really see where your money goes I can’t do that on mine.
Charlene says
Del, I was thinking of separate sheets too but then if I want to do reports and graphs it seemed like it might be a lot of work. Not that Quickbooks is fabulous but I like the graphs to see where money goes.
Janell says
I think the binder is a great idea and I like how you have it organized too! I don’t have any school age kids and we are renters, so our budget is pretty simple. I like to use an excel spreadsheet for my budget. You can create your budget and then fill in each week what is spent, and you can design it to do all the calculations for you. It is simple to make adjustments to it as well, without having to print out a new sheet each time. Another alternative to Quickbooks is Mint.com. It is free and fairly simple to use, syncs with your accounts, helps with budget, making plans for paying off debt and meeting financial goals. It is worth a look to see if it is a good fit for you!
susan says
We used Mint.com for a while for our expenses, but then due to illness got away from it. We are starting over again. It is a good tool. Separating the Walmart receipts gets old, but it works. It also has an option for budgets and goals.
Charlene says
Yes I have posted Mint a few times in the past and used it before. I don’t find it to be the same but it is a great free option.
stephanie says
Charlene – would you mind sharing your homemade budget worksheet – I am overwhelmed but determined to tackle this project….even a starting point would be great! Thanks, S
Charlene says
Stephanie,
Sure here is ours:
Fixed Expenses
Mortgage
Cable
Utilities
Car Insurance
Homeowners and Life Insurance
Pool Care
Lawn Maintenance
School Tuition
Gym Membership
Water Bill
Sewer Bill
Garbage School
Kid’s Dance Classes
Variable Expenses:
Groceries
Charitable Gifts
Retirement Investment
Misc:
Those are our bills but you might have other ones- so just take a look at the bills as they come in and write them down. So maybe car payments or credit cards or loans… whatever. I literally just typed that into a word document.
For the variable expenses that is the stuff we usually do monthly but the amount changes. Be careful of that “Misc” category because it can sneak up on you ;). I would break it down more but I enter every transaction into quickbooks so I can break it down there into dining out, clothing etc…
Does that help?
Laura says
I love your financial binder. I am currently using YNAB for my budgeting and expense tracking needs. While it eliminates a lot of paper, I am old school at heart and need the ability to write what’s on my mind.
Although YNAB allows me to enter expenses on my phone, sometimes my mind is just in another place, so having a place to put my receipts would be nice.
Thank you for posting this. I am looking forward to creating my binder.
joe says
I just came across this article, a few years after you wrote it. Its interesting, but I wanted to comment on the fact that I spent approximately 3 minutes laughing really hard at “Now I’m not Warren Buffet or anything…”. I’m not sure why, but it just flowed so well with the paragraph lol. I’m still cracking up at that line.