Resolution 2015

It's that time of year again. 

Resolutions. 

How can I make myself a better person? How can I make this the best year yet? What can I do to make my family's life better?

So here it is: Take control of our finances and own them. Don't let them own us. AND pay off a student loan. Just one of them. Just one. 

I am so sick of being stressed out because I don't know where all our money goes. and then Thane is all like..Have you SEEN our account?!?! Ugggh. Yes dear I have. Don't remind me. 

I'm sick of that. 

This is the 3rd time I have tried to figure our money life out...and I think I finally got it. 

The other night I stayed up til 1:30. Yes...1:30, but that is because it took 2 hours to put Parker down. Anyways, I stayed up til 1:30 figuring out our financial life and making our Family Budget Binder. 

It sucked.

I looked up ALL my loans. That sucked.

I wrote down all our bill on a calendar and when they are due. That sucked.

I wrote down our pay days and how much we roughly make. That sucked. 

I discovered that all we need to do to get in control of our bill is....win the lottery. 

Then I stopped daydreaming and found a handy sheet off of Pinterest to keep track of all our money in each account. We have a few accounts, and money in each for several different things. I had been keeping track of deposits on a piece of notebook paper, but if you know me...that was super annoying and not pretty enough. So I paid $2 to download this:

I'm sure you could easily make this, and not pay $2, but at 12:45am I didn't want to. If you like this you can find it here: Bill Tracker

I also decided that I need to keep track of our doctor visit bill this year so when it comes time to do my FLEX spending for next year I have a better idea of what we spend. So I found this:

Which you can find here: Dr Visits

I then dug through all my college crap resources and found some old binder dividers and set up my binder. I love binders. They make me happy.

I think I will put us on an allowance. $50 every 2 weeks. I haven't run that one by Thane yet. I'm sure he will be thrilled. 

So I know it's just a binder full of our bills...and I haven't actually set a budget yet...but it's a start! and it's only the 1st. Geesh...

Maybe I will try to read a book this year too. That seems like a good idea.....