Simple Living in Practice, Lesson #6
Welcome back to our Simple Living in Practice Lessons. Today, we will have a look at a small but valuable tool, but let me say a few introductory words first:
We mentioned in lesson #3 that it is important to produce most of what you need yourself, that is, from $5 you have to spend, make sure to produce the worth of $4 yourself. Now, how do you know how much you actually spend on what? Well, it's simple: In order to find out how much you have and need, and to keep track of your finances in every way, you need to write down what you have and what you spend, basically. And to be more precise, you have to write down what you have where, and what you spend the money on that you actually spend.
If you do this meticulously, you will know to the penny how much you have and how much you spend, and if you are diligent about splitting grocery receipts and classifying everything you buy intelligently, you will know exactly, at any time, how much you have spent so far on tomatoes, heat, laundry detergent, gas or cat food.
Of course you can write all this down in a big book. I would certainly recommend buying a household book in which to collect receipts and to keep track of stamps used and such small things. But for the money itself, my husband and I use the above mentioned handy little tool, a computer program called "Quicken".
"Quicken" comes with all kinds of features and it might take you a little time to get used to the program and get comfortable with it, but it certainly is worth the while. After every trip to the grocery store, I enter every item we bought into the program, which only takes a few minutes. Once you are used to it, and if you are diligent in entering every little thing you spend in detail and as soon as possible, you will find that Quicken gives you the most helpful information when it comes to budgeting, cutting expenditure, calculating the annual amount of money needed for a product, finding products you actually waste money on, and the like. It also helps you in keeping track of prices. After using Quicken for a while, I made shopping lists with all the products we usually buy at a certain store and their prices, which I now use as templates for our 2-weekly shopping lists. This way, I know beforehand how much money we are about to spend at the store, and if we are going over budget, I can rectify that situation in the planning stage already.
So in order to keep track of your finances, we strongly recommend accuracy and diligent track keeping, whichever way you decide to do it, so that, instead of worrying about money all the time, you simply know how much you have and what it is spend on, and can turn your attention to more important matters.
Technorati Tags: simple life, finances, budgeting, quicken, God's creation, nature, homesteading, self sufficiency, separation, SAHM, plural marriage, polygamy, dominion covenant, multi-generational family, Joshuah's House
We mentioned in lesson #3 that it is important to produce most of what you need yourself, that is, from $5 you have to spend, make sure to produce the worth of $4 yourself. Now, how do you know how much you actually spend on what? Well, it's simple: In order to find out how much you have and need, and to keep track of your finances in every way, you need to write down what you have and what you spend, basically. And to be more precise, you have to write down what you have where, and what you spend the money on that you actually spend.
If you do this meticulously, you will know to the penny how much you have and how much you spend, and if you are diligent about splitting grocery receipts and classifying everything you buy intelligently, you will know exactly, at any time, how much you have spent so far on tomatoes, heat, laundry detergent, gas or cat food.
Of course you can write all this down in a big book. I would certainly recommend buying a household book in which to collect receipts and to keep track of stamps used and such small things. But for the money itself, my husband and I use the above mentioned handy little tool, a computer program called "Quicken".
"Quicken" comes with all kinds of features and it might take you a little time to get used to the program and get comfortable with it, but it certainly is worth the while. After every trip to the grocery store, I enter every item we bought into the program, which only takes a few minutes. Once you are used to it, and if you are diligent in entering every little thing you spend in detail and as soon as possible, you will find that Quicken gives you the most helpful information when it comes to budgeting, cutting expenditure, calculating the annual amount of money needed for a product, finding products you actually waste money on, and the like. It also helps you in keeping track of prices. After using Quicken for a while, I made shopping lists with all the products we usually buy at a certain store and their prices, which I now use as templates for our 2-weekly shopping lists. This way, I know beforehand how much money we are about to spend at the store, and if we are going over budget, I can rectify that situation in the planning stage already.
So in order to keep track of your finances, we strongly recommend accuracy and diligent track keeping, whichever way you decide to do it, so that, instead of worrying about money all the time, you simply know how much you have and what it is spend on, and can turn your attention to more important matters.
Technorati Tags: simple life, finances, budgeting, quicken, God's creation, nature, homesteading, self sufficiency, separation, SAHM, plural marriage, polygamy, dominion covenant, multi-generational family, Joshuah's House
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