During the first two weeks of my unemployment, I did a couple tasks my husband used to do while I was at work. First, I shoveled a lot of really heavy snow uphill both ways with my arms tied behind my back while someone chucked rocks at my head, and then I started doing the grocery shopping.
I know! He’s so mean to make me do the grocery shopping myself!
Having flexed my home management muscle, I sat down with the checkbook one day and made sure we’d entered all the transactions even though that’s “his job”. And then, two nights ago, I did something monumentally stupid.
I did all the math for the checkbook while he was looking. Actually, I told him I did it. Because I’m a show off. And a bit of an idiot. Look what I can do!
Today, I get the following in an email from my dearest, darling husband:
If you would like to try doing the bills sometime this is how I do it. (long list of blah blah blah blah followed)
Oh my goodness. Isn’t he adorable?
I’m thinking taking on this responsibility would be good because it would make me feel in charge of something and give me an opportunity to hide Starbucks trips. But instead of just paying the bills as they come in and hoping there is some leftover, I want to do this up right and stick to a budget and see where all our money is really going. So I’m looking for something not as powerful as Quicken but more structured than a blank Excel spreadsheet.
So far I’ve found My Budget Planner. I think I’m going to give it a shot. Unless someone stops me. (Anyone?) Just know that I am not plugging formulas into Excel by myself unless you pay me a fair hourly wage and offer health insurance, sickleave and vacation. And high speed internet service. And food days. We have to have food days.
What are food days?
Quickbooks - but it isn’t free. Man, is it NOT free. Geez louise.
Holy crap! You’re not kidding it isn’t free. Woo!
I’ve found some others, including some that are online only. I really want something I can download. I don’t need “remote” access and I don’t want that info on the internet. Because of the paranoia.
Food days are the magical days when everyone in the office brings food to share. It’s one of the things I’ll miss about being employed. Who’s going to bring me the cheese dip? Veggie pizza? Sheet cake? I’ll tell you who - NOBODY. And Nobody is a really lousy cook.
I’m a little late on this one (I just found your site — thanks for commenting on mine!), but I find The Budget Kit to be very helpful. It’s a paper book, so if you’re after a computer program it might not be for you; but I find it extremely helpful when it comes to budget planning and tracking.