Budgeting, keeping track of my expenses, trying to get out of debt and stay out of debt, paying bills on time, and saving money–these are the things that I struggle with consistently. While doing things online helps, it also confuses me.
Let me try to explain. When I make my budget and allot a certain amount of money to go to groceries, it makes perfect sense on paper. Then I go to the store and buy my groceries. If I have cash, I use cash, and if not, I use my credit card. This splits up my grocery expenses in the month between cash and my credit card balance.
Another things that confuses me is when I buy gifts for people. If I buy them through Amazon, it goes on my credit card. Amazon doesn’t always keep the purchases together as they charge it to my card. So while I’m thinking I spent $40 for my Mom when I bought her two shirts, my credit card shows two smaller purchases. It would be ok if that was all I bought on Amazon, but when it gets combined with other purchases, I get confused.
The budget goes out the window because I don’t know what is going on. What was gifts? What was personal expenses? What was household expenses?
Then there are the automatic payments to my card and the money that automatically gets pulled from my checking account and sent to my savings account. Don’t forget the yearly large payments, like Amazon Prime, that I forget about until they come around. These things drive me crazy. For some reason, my brain can’t keep up with the variety of stuff going on.
Now I know I should keep track of all my expenses and if I wrote down each Amazon purchase, I wouldn’t get so confused. I also have heard of “sinking funds” where money is set aside each month for the once-a-year payments. I try to keep track of everything and do all the paperwork, but I think this is one of the areas that is a huge challenge for me. I’m always reinventing my system.
I also have this question–when I’m budgeting, and so many things are going on my credit card, do I budget it under “Food” and “Gifts” or my credit card payment? Or do I put under both? That makes the balance wrong. Do you know what I mean?
Another challenging aspect of keeping track of my finances is that I get paid twice a month. This may not sound like a problem to you, but I have such a hard time deciding what to pay from each check.
Can you tell that I am financially challenged? My brain does not easily grasp how this all works. So this is what I am going to be working on. And I will take you with me on this journey. Welcome to the chaos that is my financial brain!