Originally posted by: dullard
Originally posted by: Doboji
It's more than just spending...
I have 2 credit cards 2 savings accounts, 2 Checking accounts, 1 joint checking account... my fiancee has 1 savings, 1 checking and 2 credit cards.
Money is going all over the damn place... I start a new job next week, I'm trying to pay for a wedding. There are 401Ks, IRAs, Employee stock purchase plan, her 401K, etc etc etc... I'd like to play the stock market a bit, there are a zillion finanical instruments out there... I want to live well now, and be rich later... I thought I knew what I was doing but here we are 3 months into living together and I have managed to save a grand total of $600... not good.
My best advice would be to start by simplifing. Here are some potential things to try:
1) Too many savings/checking accounts. You could survive yourself by cutting one of your savings accounts and one of your checking accounts. Many people like to open sparate accounts for everything. But it is just as easy to do all in one account.
2) Maybe you shouldn't worry so much about your fiancee's accounts at this point. For now, they are hers with her money.
3) With 401Ks and other employer based investments, just pick a few funds and forget it. Leave it and don't look back for 1 year. Then once a year rebalance your funds. Partially sell the funds that did well in that year, and use that money to buy the funds that did poorly that year. Then you are always selling high and buying low. Doing this will beat 95% of 401Ks that people try to overmanage. Just set it and forget it.
4) Forget playing the stock market for now. Too much stress and you have too much on your plate as it is. When your wedding is over, you'll have thousands of dollars in cash and checks as gifts. Maybe use that for your stock fun.
5) For all reputable companies, have them automatically bill you. If available, automatically charge your electricity, phone, water, gas, cable, internet, etc to your credit card. Then you don't have to worry about those bills. If not available, you can automatically deduct from your checking account.
Then track your spending. For a couple of months, write down everything you spend in simple categories: clothes, grocery store, eating out, entertainment, utilities, rent, school, vehicles, etc. Use specialized software, a simple Excel spreadsheet, or heck even a pad of paper. Do this to find out where your money is going. For example, I always thought I over-spent on gifts to others. It turned out that gifts were about 0.5% of my total budget. I could double the size of the gifts and not even notice it. Same thing for my entertainment spending. I wasn't spending much there, so trying to cut back on it would be difficult and would not accomplish much. However, I was spending way too much of my income on fast food. I chose to eat in just a little more often and it made a huge impact on my ability to save.
Finally, write a simple budget. Put the knowledge of what you spend to use. Set a few goals: cut back certain areas and increase others (such as saving for your wedding). Realize that budgets must be flexible. But now at least you have a solid plan that isn't futile.
