Last weekend was Makeover Mania at the T-Bones stadium. The group events are always fun because I get to see the other families and hear how they're doing and get new ideas on how Jim and I can get more financially fit. We played a couple games that were fun. One was a taste test to compare the difference between name brand and store brand foods. I could tell a difference on some but everything still tasted good. When I realized that switching to the store brand on 6 or 7 items could save almost $10 on a grocery bill, those store brands started tasting better and better! We also did a comparison between a new car and a used car and ALL the expenses from purchase cost to maintenance to insurance. This is something that I'm quite familiar with due to Jim's love of cars but it's still an eye opener to see it written down on paper and realize how much money we spend on something that is intended to get us from point A to point B.
One of my favorite pieces of information came from a Amy Grothaus, CommunityAmerica's Assistant Vice President of their Clay County branches. She organizes her credit union accounts and names them to make them personal. She said it was similar to an envelope system where money is allocated to specific uses and put in envelopes each month, but instead of envelopes she utilizes multiple credit union accounts. This was both crazy and wonderful to me! When Jim and I started this Makeover, thought we had too many bank accounts and that was why we were having trouble keeping track of expenses and keeping on the same page financially. I've realized over the past seven months that it wasn't the number of accounts - it was our lack of communication on our spending habits and savings goals that was causing the issue. I love the idea of creating a separate account and naming it "Vacation Account" or "New Car" or whatever else it is that we want to "buy" before actually buying. Being able to label that goal and work towards it together is a really cool idea to me.
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by Bridgid Driscoll, July 25, 2010 at 9:39 PM | Add a Comment
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