Doing Dave Ramsey- Our Way!

Every family at some point gets to that place where their budget gets wonky... and you have to reign that bad boy back in.  I faced that place this month.  Christmas was looming... we were spending too freely- and I had to figure out what was going on with our money!

I was using The Happy Planner Budget Extension Pack.... and guys... I really really REALLY wanted to love it.  I really did.  But I couldn't implement it the way I felt that I needed to manage our money. And I wasn't finding the tools I desperately needed to make that possible.

I love Dave Ramsey. His methods are amazing.  But for me, as many places I go I don't feel safe carrying around money in envelopes for me to put down and forget to pick back up.  I hate the thought of losing my entire month's worth of money... so ...

I bought a Martha Stewart Arc cover from Staples, as well as some page protectors and pocket dividers, because lets face it, if you are going to do it, it might as well be pretty.  So after I chose a cover, I started creating the documents I needed in my binder.  First, I needed a master list of my bills with account numbers in the front.  Done.  Then, I needed to create categories of where all my bills went and their categories.  For example, the one main heading of Utilities holds the electric bill, water bill, cable bill, etc.  For our family, we have 9 categories.  Next, I created a sheet with all my categories and what fell in those- and assigned an icon stamp for each.

Still with me?  Okay... so am I the only one who hates the small check book register that comes with checks?  I hate it.  It's small.  And I had no way to include my stamp category stuff.  So, of course I created something different.  I created a check book register that includes a column for the category stamps!! Why is this what I needed? Well let me show you! 

See that budget category column?  Thats where a stamp goes from the master list shown above.  So as I am keeping track of our checkbook, I also have a visual of how much spending is going on in each category.  Once I have balanced all that and tabulated, I then check off from the register and add my expenditures to what would normally be on the outside of the cash envelopes, but I have included here in my binder.

This helps me know when I am out of money in that particular category, so I know to stop spending!! It's something I will do before I go to bed each night if I have been out and about.  

I also have this sheet in my binder.  This sheet I used a couple of years ago before I tried the MAMBI budget extension.  This sheet was amazing at keeping me in sync with how I needed to allocate our money.  Ms. Wenduh has some amazing free printable on her blog.  She also sells planner stickers.  Love her stuff! 

And that is how we plan on getting back on track.  Why wait until the first of the year? Now is the time to make your money work for you!  It is good to start saving money, or getting out of debt.  I feel driven like never before to make our money work hard for us.  

I hope this inspires you to take your money captive and do the right stuff with it!!