When my due date was on the horizon I started to get a slight panic. My husband is a US Marine on recruiting duty. For those of you that think his favorite past time is to pester your high school child and try to steal their soul for an hour and then go fishing...I am here to tell you it is NOT true.
First off he works 12-16 hour days, 5-7 days a week. So...once my bundle of tears arrived, he would not be able to seamlessly take over paying bills and taking care of our household.
Enter The Binder. *Queue amazing super hero music here* In this binder I put everything to run our house. Cleaning, cooking, bills, phone numbers, passwords, budget anything I could think of.
If you have not set up a budget, I highly recommend it. We have everything budgeted. This was as simple as sitting down, and looking at what our income and expenses are. We then set up a little table showing income and expenses for each paycheck.
For example. If you make $4000 a month, you make roughly $2000 per paycheck. Subtract all bills first. Rent, utilities, child support if you have it, car payments, insurance, gas, savings, etc.
Look at what your overflow is. What is left over after all your bills are paid. From there we budgeted out our "play" money. Money for hobbies, coffee, lunch, movies, whatever it is that you like to do.
From this budget you can create a Bills Sheet:
We get paid on the 1st and 15th of each month. I divided up our bills accordingly. Under the 1st I have each bill we pay, the web address, username, passwords, account numbers, payment info (account numbers, credit cards, etc). I also created a "bills" tab in my bookmarks on my browser and put every webpage we use to pay bills in this tab.
Look at what your overflow is. What is left over after all your bills are paid. From there we budgeted out our "play" money. Money for hobbies, coffee, lunch, movies, whatever it is that you like to do.
From this budget you can create a Bills Sheet:
We get paid on the 1st and 15th of each month. I divided up our bills accordingly. Under the 1st I have each bill we pay, the web address, username, passwords, account numbers, payment info (account numbers, credit cards, etc). I also created a "bills" tab in my bookmarks on my browser and put every webpage we use to pay bills in this tab.
Bills
(all bookmarked under “bills” in Safari)
1st:
Rent: $775.00
www.rentpayment.com Username: ourusername Password: pa$$word
Payment info: account num. 1234567891011 routing num. 1234567890
Internet: $70.00
AUTOMATIC ~ Pays out on the 13th. ~Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number
~Payment Info
Phone: $50.00
AUTOMATIC ~ Pays out on the 2nd. ~Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number ~Payment Info
Savings: $100
Groceries: $250
Gas Money: $100
Hobby Money: $125
Coffee/Lunch Money: $40
15th:
Gas: Variable
~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number
~Payment Info
Electric: Variable
~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number
~Payment Info
Water: Variable (Must know amount)
~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number
~Payment Info
Insurance: $120
~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number
~Payment Info
Netflix/Hulu: $20
~ Web Address ~ Username ~ Password ~ Account Number
~Payment Info
Savings: $100
Groceries: $250
Gas Money: $100
Hobby Money: $125
Coffee/Lunch Money: $40
DO NOT print this out at a public location. Do NOT put this in an easily accessible location in your home.
Page protectors are always a good idea. You can also put a pencil pouch in the binder with "petty cash" how much petty cash is up to you.
Since I was due ON Thanksgiving day, our binder included money for a hotel for family if needed, money for the Thanksgiving dinner I had ordered from a local market, plans, money, and instructions for our son's birthday party, (2 days after Thanksgiving).
