The Weight of Money

Since my partner and I will soon be merging finances, I need new spreadsheets to manage accounts, incomes, savings, investments, and spending. I’ve looked at the one I’m using now and just don’t feel like it is going to make a smooth transition into married life.

Is there anyone out there that has a spreadsheet system that works well for them that they are willing to share?

Basically, I’m looking to track:

* multiple sources of income
* multiple accounts (joint and individual)
* investments
* retirement accounts
* assets
* liabilities
* monthly budget

Overall, this sounds rather simple and I should be able to come up with something capable of managing it all with no problem. I would still like to see what others have come up with and compare notes in order make improvements on what I have in mind.

Dining Out: I’ve been consistently crossing $200 even though I only budget $50-75. Of course, I realize that I need to reevaluate that number. Wanting to spend a maximum of $50 a month on dining out is obviously not a realistic expectation. Also, my schedule has gotten very hectic and I’m no longer making dinner or grabbing a lunch before heading out the door. This has drastically risen my dining spending. I need to write down some steps to take, starting now, to help reduce this.

DD: My daughter is going out of state for her Spring Break. Originally, her grandmother was going to purchase the ticket, but I agreed to cover the cost of the plane ticket after I decided to not join her on the trip. However, one reason I was not going to go was the cost of the trip; agreeing to pay for her ticket did not eliminate that.

Cleaning Income: I’m not getting paid consistently right now. This is very stressful, especially considering this normally goes into my ING account where I was taking advantage of the spring save up special. Sigh. So, they actually owe me a months worth of pay, including this week, and I should see an impressive jump this month in savings contributions once they start paying on time again.

Child Support: It has actually started to show up again. However, I’ve not seen two consistent payments, scheduling wise, so I’m not sure what to expect. For March, it helped to cover the plane ticket I wasn’t planning on buying. This month, if it continues to show up, it will go into ING for additional funds for home buying. Once the house is in process, all child support funds will go into DD’s ING account for any major purchase she needs. Monthly child support is normally only $239.08, so it isn’t much to count on.

Overall: Other than dining out, it looks like I am still doing pretty good keeping spending in check. The wedding purchases will eventually be covered by some of savings. I am planning to spend about $500 from savings for the wedding, but that is for things that I can’t fit into my monthly budget somewhere. Additionally, gas as prices have really increased lately and that may have some impact, but I’ll reduce my driving as much as possible to prevent it from becoming an issue.

I’ve updated my net worth for April. It is a bit discouraging to see such a negative number for my net worth, but at least I’m making positive progress. The negative percentage in the monthly difference is throwing me off a little because I’ve made positive gains in my net worth over the past few months. However, I’m sure it is a problem with my formula and the calculation for negative numbers. I’ll fix it next time.

Also, I feel the need to point out that I’m doing pretty good considering that I’m a full-time student without gainful employment. I have a bit of cleaning work that goes straight to savings, but that doesn’t factor into my monthly budget.

I also plan to include my fiancé’s numbers but wanted to get this up while I was motivated. Plus, it’ll probably be even more intimidating to see just how much the net worth will drop once I add in his credit card debt. He has a fair amount of personal property assests (mostly large machinery) that will help, but the net worth will still take a hit. We’ve certainly got a lot of work ahead of us, but I know that we can do it.

Update: Here is our combined net worth — yes, I’m still optimistic that things will improve. I also fixed the net worth percentage of difference — just needed to make my divisor an absolute value.

I’ve been wanting to talk about money for a while now, but I just didn’t feel right putting it on my personal website. Not because I wish to withhold this information from friends, but because I worry that it would cross the personal disclosure line that would put me at greater risk for identity theft or something similar. So, I will take the opportunity to use this screen to get into the nitty gritty of my finances, financial goals, and progress.

I’m currently strapped for time with my many obligations, but I’ve already outlined some things that I will include:

1. 6 and 12 month Financial Goals
2. Current Debt & Savings
3. Monthly Budget
4. Credit Repair
5. Home Buying Adventure

These will all include real numbers and real actions. I’m not perfect and I’ve been known to make mistakes and will surely make more. I’m getting married later this year and that has some interesting financial implications. In the beginning, I will be reporting his debts and savings, but not his budget. We plan to fully merge finances once we are married and I’ll be working on developing a system that I can find acceptable since I’m used to just managing my own money.

My hopes for this page are that I will see my progress and use the writing on the wall method to improve. I hope to be an example and a peer for other personal finance bloggers that are still beginning or who are fighting with $100k+ in debt (not including mortgages). I am inspired by the blogs I read where people have made great progress, but I also love reading about people who are taking another look at their lives and are just starting out on an new course of action.