On a budget

Let me start out by saying that we are not currently on a budget of any kind.

Travis and I have loved the idea of a budget for years, but have never had the time/discipline to even sit down and make one. Basically I just keep an eye on the money from our online banking (a habit I picked up in my 4 years of working at the Bank) and when it starts to run down we start to slow down our spending. I'm not proud of of my ways. So we're working on it.

Our Bank (First National Bank) just came out with a program on their online banking that helps you budget! I checked it out last night. Through pie graphs and tagging things and other cool tools it figures out on it's own what category most of our purchases (using our debit card) go to and tells me how much we are spending on what. Love it. Last month we spent %8 of our money on clothes (it was a birthday month though). I'm not really happy with that so I set a new goal and the website tells me how much I have left.

Another area Travis and I greatly need a budget in is our TIME. I think this is more pressing. I think my plan right now is that we will sit down and figure out on a weekly/monthly basis how many approximate hours we want to spend where and with who. Like, we should spend at least 3 hours a week just the two of us, 8 hours a week as a family, X hours a week doing ministry with high schoolers, X hours with other adults... you get the point. Things are just spinning out of control!