Balancing the Checkbook

Every Sunday, I balance the checkbooks and check how we are doing on our budget. Our budget is strict, and we don’t follow it perfectly, but we try, and the budget can be adjusted as needed from week to week.

We’ve worked on a lot of different budgets and theories. The basic sound principle of finances is, “Spend less than you earn.” Simple, but difficult. What happens when there is an emergency, and you have to spend all of your savings plus a bit more? What happens when those emergencies keep happening?

I know that in our family, those emergencies do happen. We plan on them. We try to set a bit aside every month for car repairs, house repairs, and medical expenses. When there is an emergency, we usually have enough set aside to cover it.

I’ve read numerous financial books, and still have several within reach. I’ve got Marvin J. Ashton’s One for the Money, George S.Clason’s The Richest Man in Babylon, Janene Baadsgaard’s Family Finances for the Flabbergasted and Mary Hunt’s The Complete Cheapskate. I would also have The Wealthy Barber, but I’ve been able to borrow that from the library whenever I wanted to read through it. I’ve also enjoyed Rich Dad, Poor Dad and others.

Some of the basic principles that seem to be repeated most often:
1. Spend less than you earn. Put aside at least 10 percent of your income for long-term savings.
2. Avoid debt. If you are currently in debt, don’t get in deeper. Move things to a lower interest loan, if you can, and then pay it down. Cut up your credit cards if you need to, in order to keep from going back in to debt.
3. Pay 10 percent of your income to a charity. The financial books written by LDS people recommend paying tithing to the LDS church. Other financial books simply recommend giving generously to charities, and some recommend specifically giving one tenth of what you earn. This does not seem to make a lot of sense in the short term, but numerous financial experts claim that it works in the long run.
4. Prepare adequately for the future. Insurance, wills, food storage, emergency preparedness, retirement plans, educational IRAs, and other areas, help us to prepare now for our future needs.

I know that in our family, there are two things that throw us off track the fastest. First, we get busy, so we buy convenience. We are running around to visits with the parents of the foster children, or their therapy appointments, or homeschooling play groups, or any of a dozen other things, and so we eat at a restaurant, instead of eating at home. Or we buy pre-made freezer meals instead of the raw ingredients.

The second problem is that when I feel unloved or unappreciated, I sometimes will go out and buy myself a gift. I usually don’t even realize why I am doing it. I just suddenly feel that I was going to buy that grill sometime anyway, and it’s on sale right now, so I should buy it now and save the money, even though it throws our budget off completely. I then feel guilty, and I don’t want to admit anything to The Wifey until the bill arrives and I can’t avoid the subject any longer.

When it is a battle between emotions and logic, emotions will usually win, and we will twist our logic around to match. However, since I have learned this about myself, I can do things differently. I can buy myself something much smaller, such as a candy bar. Then later I can look at the underlying reason of why I feel unloved or unappreciated, and I can do something to change it.

And that is the real key to taking charge of our financial lives. We need to find our own weak spots, and learn how to overcome them.

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