Living on one income during the waiting process!

[Love_Young]

As most of you know that living on one income is very tough. Right now I am trying to find a better way to deal with our debt and also plan budgets (we are young and still learning). We are having to pay our debt off and try to save to get our own place. I save receipt after receipt on every purchase we ever make which I think is a good start. Now I am trying to find a computer program that makes it easier to see where we have spent our money for every month. I am sorry for being off topic but I really couldn't think of another place to go and I thought you all might be money savvy. All your help is appreciated.

So if you could suggest computer programs or techniques you have used while you are a family on one income during this wait, I would be interested in what you have to say. I am anxiously awaiting your help. Thanks.

 

[Baloo]

Have a read here first, some good information.
http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/
http://www.slice.ca/Shows/ShowsPage.aspx?Title_ID=93097

 

[Love_Young]

Have a read here first, some good information.
http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/
http://www.slice.ca/Shows/ShowsPage.aspx?Title_ID=93097

Thank you for sharing those links with me Baloo. Hopefully others find them useful too. I really like her show and she inspires me. I don't know why I didn't think to look her up sooner. Lol.

 

[Leon]

Bring out the paper and start writing down all your fixed bills you can not easily change such as rent, utilities etc. Add it all up. Then subtract from your income. You will now have how much you can spend on your variable expenses such as food. Every pay check, go to the ATM and take out that money. Then park your card. With the money, first go grocery shopping. The left over will have to last until the next pay check. Split it between you and your spouse as you see fit.

If you find that you do not have enough money after you pay your fixed expenses, try to see where you can cut down on them by cancelling subscriptions etc.

 

[Love_Young]

WOW that is really really good tips Leon. You really simplified this all for me.
I am good at accounting and finances but haven't done it in some time. And this is my first doing it based on my own income/bills. I will share your tips with my husband. I am sure he will find this very easy to follow along with. Thank you so much for your tremendous help. ;D

 

[MikeUK]

I use GNUCash to keep tabs on my incomings and outgoings and use it to generate reports of monthly expenditures and compare month v month so I can catch anomalies and can see where every penny goes.

It's open source and free and is available for Mac, PC and Linux. Check it out here: http://www.gnucash.org/

It takes a bit of work to get it setup and you have to remain quite committed to entering new transactions as and when they happen...but if you stay on top of it, it really does paint a very clear picture of your finances and helps you to make decisions on where to cut back.

 

[jillandmat]

i use ibudget.. its simple and free look it up on cnet

 

[deer30]

Hi Love_Young!

I have a bank account with RBC and they break down my spending habits for me on their online banking. I'm sure the other banks have a feature like that on their online banking! Also we set up an automatic withdrawl to go towards RRSPs - which really helps us save

Good Luck

 

[kelKel]

Oh wow you guys are good! We're on one income now since end of May. Living downtown Toronto in a lakeside condo with a brand new car, insurance, utilities, gas for my commute LOL I dont have any extra money to budget so I wont have to worry about that until he can work again.

 

[KarenCee]

Yep...I'm with KelKel on this one. This has been good information for us as well. My husband has kept his RBC account in NS and we're thinking of opening an RBC down here with the idea that money transfers will be easier this way. The bank we use now doesn't have that feature so we'll be sure to look for that. We're slowly beginning to save a bit here and there so that hopefully living off one income won't be so bad.

One area we have managed to save money is our power bill - by converting to compact fluorescent bulbs. We have also cut out our favourite thing...eating out. We still do that occasionally but not like we used to do. Mortgage and other utilities, well, they're set in stone. But I will advise this: look for other ways you can rearrange expenses, those that vary month to month.

Hope it isn't too much longer before you can look for work.

 

[Baloo]

One area we have managed to save money is our power bill - by converting to compact fluorescent bulbs.

Although more expensive, start looking at LED lights - they are not perfect in all applications, but certainly save me more $$ that CFL's.

 

[KarenCee]

We've got some of those as well, they're just not as bright as the CFL's or either we didn't buy the right kind. LED's are definitely energy efficient though.

 

[Baloo]

We've got some of those as well, they're just not as bright as the CFL's or either we didn't buy the right kind. LED's are definitely energy efficient though.

LED's do need to get better, the big plus after the energy savings is the fact that LED's turn on instantly at full brightness.

I bet you already turn off the dryer, so I wont suggest it

 

[Leon]

There are different ways to save on utilities too. Don't leave the lights on and don't use the dryer are the obvious ones. Set your water boiler to a lower temperature, program your furnace to turn the heat down when you are not home, don't leave the TV on if you are not watching it (I do that myself). Cancel newspaper and magazine subscriptions if you can live without. Cut down your cable package to what you really must watch or cut out cable alltogether if you don't watch a lot. Look carefully at your phonebill and be conscious about how long you are on the phone. Same with the cell phone. You can also look for a better phone plan.

The best way to avoid temptation while shopping if money is tight is to park the cards. When you have $20 in your pocket and you know it has to last, you are much less tempted to buy something you don't need. When going grocery shopping, make a list at home and stick to it to avoid going crazy when you are at the store.

 

[Love_Young]

Oh man I am just so glad I made this thread. I knew everyone here would have great advice and tips.
I actually went through all our receipts last night totaled how much we spend on eating out and stores. Omg we spend way too much but that could be because we have been living with the in laws right now. Right now we have limited ourselves to $200 for personal purchases a month like either we split it or can use it for eating out etc and if we don't use any of it or just some then the rest goes into savings. Both of us though can't really live without going out for that long. We have a Netflix subscription so we have considered that when we get our own place that we only get telephone and internet. I mean nowadays you can just hook up the computer to the TV anyhow and watch TV shows from there. I did notice that RBC did have that tracker thing which I love but we only have a E-Savings account with them so we don't use it daily. Our main account is with Scotiabank and I don't think they have a tracker yet. We don't have that high of a limit on our credit card but we tend to use that for small purchases, like say if we are shopping at several stores and only purchasing things worth $5 at each store than we will use the credit card for the time being and then pay it off as soon as we get home instead of wasting several transactions on a lot of small purchases. Plus we are limited to only so many transactions a month on our debit so we have to be careful of those.

Since I may be getting AIP in April *crosses fingers* we are moving out after I receive a work permit. Our main focus for right now is to go out less, pay off bills, and whatever is left over from each paycheck put into savings. If we do this right we could have $3,000 by the time we look for a place. Ahh...that would be so much more relaxing and nice. Right now, I need to focus on paying off that holiday debt. We went a bit wild but we figured we deserved it and should do it just this once since next year we probably won't have too much money since we will have our own place. We are definitely learning a lot. We are going to probably make a few more mistakes but we have time to learn from them. Just want to say thanks for all the amazing recommendations. I hope everyone is enjoying them well and that all of you continue to share your experiences too.