do you happen to have a system for budgeting your money
um
just sweared i heard that beep but usually
you can hear the tape or you can hear it starting um
oh i've never go ahead
uh no no i am a very organized person that believes i ought to have all those things and we don't
uh-huh so you it's not just you you have a family
yes i'm married i have two kids um young four and a half and three and
as far as sitting down and putting a formal budget paper and pen you know and following it no we don't do that
um i have a very good idea of what our expenses are and how much we can afford to spend and can't spend and
you know so it it's not like we just totally don't have a clue as to what's going on but i wish we were a little more organized a little more
you know when i think about it there are certain parameters we work about
faithful to a budget
but we don't have a budget where it says its so much for this and so much for that but we do put a certain amount in checking account each month which we should pay for the mortgage and the electric bill and all that
right
and i know there's a certain number i put on my grocery and pocket money
and sometimes i have a little left over and i kind of put it away but the next week i pull it out and add it to that number
right
and i know that i don't go above that and i know that when we empty out the mortgage and the electric bill money and all that that you know
you got to stop spending but you know i i don't know if i can say i guess with the grocery and pocket money i do have a particular number but
that's right that's right
you know you never know if if you own a home you never know if something's going to break and you're gonna need more
that's right well it's very difficult my husband is in is self-employed he's in uh financial planning and and so all of his income is commissions
it's very hard to sit down and budget because you don't know what he's going to make uh you know we kind of think you know he usually brings home at least this much and i can base you know base it from there
right
but there's months that he brings home uh you know three times that much and there's some months he doesn't bring home anything it just depends on where the commissions fall and so you kind of have to you know i have in in my mind i know the basics i know what we've got to meet each month
you know and and my salary helps towards that because mine's set you know but um
i think that we could probably save a little better or afford to do more things for fun that we'd like to do if i did follow a you know pencil and paper budget but
do you folks get to save
well differently i mean do i have a savings account sitting in the bank no but uh we do have you know universal life insurance on him we have um
a 401K a CODA plan preretirement plan on me through my work uh so there are things that we have money invested in you know i have a profit sharing and pension uh savings more toward retirement
now savings sitting at the bank that hey let's plan a vacation no when we decide we wanna do something like that we start saving for that and when we get it we go
right you know cause i i'm finding more and more that people don't have so many dollars left after they spend on what they have to spend i
i think it's the rare person who says well i'm just putting money away for my kids and and every week puts in fifty dollars or something i don't i think people aren't having much left at all nowadays
right
i think it's more and more difficult i do have savings accounts for my kids at work
and um and i use that for their uh life insurance investments uh but
i also pull from that and from mine if we need the money you know if you need it for something or like you said the something comes up on the house and you've got to have it well you go deplete those funds and use it you know
right that come from somewhere
yeah i work part time i'm a substitute art teacher
oh
so you know we try to live on my husband's salary and when i want something frivolous that he probably wouldn't agree to i just you know spend my own money or chip it in when you know something big comes up
that's true
now we have an interesting arrangement my husband loves golf
and i'm glad he has i mean it's his release it's his time each week where he's not dad and he's not husband and he's not employee and he you know what i'm saying it's just a release
i thought you said when he's not dead not dad well jeez
and no dad dad not dead i'll have to work on that uh
and and i'm glad he has that i'm glad he enjoys it but i used to resent it because i felt like all of our spare money went to his golf
i don't particularly have anything i like to do from week to week or day to day or or anything like that and that's fine
um and so what i started doing and he's never said you know if i wanted something i'd look in the checkbook because i'm to practical and say nah i'd better not spend the money
uh-huh
well he's never held me back you know he's always said if you want something go get it
but i didn't feel comfortable so now when he goes and golfs i take you know if he takes out ten bucks or fifteen bucks or twenty bucks i take the same amount and i stick it in a savings account that i have at the credit union at work
oh
and i save for something i want because
