This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Capital One 360.
A while back, in order to achieve financial independence, my husband and I sold our second car, and became a one car family. We also sold our main car, and purchased a cheaper car. We were a one car family for 5 years. It was a pretty long 5 years, and I’m definitely glad to have graduated from that status. It was a lot of juggling, coordinating, and walking over to my sister’s house to borrow her car. This is a picture of the money we got from selling our cars. It quickly went towards our debt so that we can become debt free… but it was a fun night until the bank opened!
Now that we don’t have any consumer debt (the only debt we have left is our home and debt to family), and we are back to having two cars, we needed to manage our money a whole lot better so we didn’t get caught up in bad money habits again!
The biggest key to managing money is creating a budget and STICKING to the budget. In the past, when I would look at my bank account, it was easy to see that money and go “oh I have plenty to spend on this really lame thing I think I need right now.” So I have to employ the “envelope” budgeting system. This way I place money into various categories so I can look at the entertainment category and go.. “oh I have $50 in entertainment, yes we can go to the movies tonight.”
Since I’m completely insane, I actually use 3 programs and make sure they all match up every day.
First is one I just can’t seem to let go of, it’s the excel spreadsheet that I created, probably about 10 years ago. It’s grown in complication since then, but here’s a download of the basic format.
I make sure the totals of that match up with…
My second program, which is Quicken. I download my transactions from my bank and make sure the total in Quicken matches the excel sheet. I also keep track of when my bills are due with notifications within Quicken. I can look at the month and see which bills I’ve paid and which ones I still have due. (I forgot that I have a 4th method of financial checkup, which is I entered all of my bill amounts and due dates in a google calendar called “bills” associated with my main google account.)
The third program I use is called mvelopes. I like mvelopes because it can also download my transactions automatically. I make sure the envelope amounts match the various “column” amounts in my excel sheet, and obviously that the final balance matches with the other two programs as well. What I especially like about mvelopes is that they have an app as well, so I can see exactly how much money is in a specific virtual envelope when I’m out and about. This is very helpful in case I run into a sale!
The truth is you could use any one of these programs by themselves and be perfectly fine, I get a certain amount of comfort when they all match up though, so I know I’m exactly on the right track!
So, to make myself feel better… is anyone crazy like me, and balances their money with more than one application?
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Capital One 360.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using the links.
Love it! You are amazing!