What do you save for???

[crisi]

I'm impressed by some of these budgets. But, I'm not sure they have to be so detailed for everyone. My dh and I operate a little differently. We save to the max in his 401k, half of my pay into mine, put in money to our kids 529s, and automatically pay insurance. After that, we fund our Roth iras to the max. Everything else gets pooled into one big account. from there, we pay off our monthly credit card; we charge everything for the rewards (2% on all purchases into a 529). We paid off our mortgage about 4 years ago, so I know that puts us in a little different category. The pool of money is for anything we need, like repairs, cars, vacations, etc. I generally know all of my bills mentally, as well as my accounts. I guess I'm just saying you don't need to over think a budget necessarily and make saving a priority.

I don't bother with that much either.

And even if you are bleeding money, you can go very general to start with if you aren't a great record keeper. Fixed bills (loans, mortgage). Variable bills (utilities, phone, heat), groceries, clothes (need), entertainment/dining out, other. At the end of the month, you can start looking closer at the places that look out of whack

 

[MarthaJr.]

I've decided I'm going to have 4 different savings accounts this year.

First: to cover property taxes
Second: emergency fund (3 months living expenses)
Third: general (used for stuff we will need ie: tires, house maintenance etc.)
Fourth: travel

I have ING accounts for the first 2 and have 2 savings accounts at my local bank for the others.

The rest I just keep in checking to pay for our monthly fixed expenses like mortgage, groceries, gas, utilities etc.