Pat and I sat down at the kitchen table this afternoon and went over the bill pay cycle. This is the first step in Suze Orman's plan to get straight with your money. She recommends that all women know about the financial situation in their home and become more involved.
Some of you may remember that I blogged a few weeks ago about my plan to get more involved in the family finances for two reasons: To learn more about how much money we have coming in and going out and to take some of the burden off Pat.
I have to take a few minutes to praise my husband on how precise he is when it comes to paying our bills. Most of our bills are on Bill Pay and Pat has them on two cycles... so that he goes in every other Saturday (after pay day) and sends out the bills that are due in the next two weeks.
Then he puts all of that information (along with the deposits) into a Quicken program that keeps up with our balance. He does the same thing with our savings account.
It looks like a lot of work!
It really did me good to look at our bills... I should have done it a while ago and recommend it to anyone who doesn't know how much money they have coming in and are spending each month.
We've had a lot of unexpected expenses in the last few months that have put a hit on our bank account, but Pat had made sure we stayed a set course (as much as possible). I can certainly understand the importance of my freelance work and bringing in a little extra money.
In two weeks I'll sit down again with Pat, but I hope to be the one paying the bills ... without messing anything up.
Now we just have to tighten our belts since we have another baby on the way!
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