Time to get serious

Goal for tomorrow:
1) Sit down and figure out where we've spent money in the last 6 weeks
2) Figure out a way to regularly track spending going forward

I've used Microsoft money and mint.com in the past, but now i've actually created my own excel program that does everything the way I want it to. I have everything set up and ready to go, but have not yet been successful at sitting down with it and entering our expenses on a regular basis. We need to be on somewhat of a budget these days, though, so I'm making it a priority. My goal is to reconcile at least once a week.

Spender is on board, and we've agreed to sit down tomorrow night to do our best accounting of the last 6 weeks. Now that we're getting settled in to life here, we can also finalize our budget. As of June 1st, our "we just moved here" excuse is officially over!!

Coming Clean

Like any good personal finance blogger, I plan to post regular (monthly?) updates on my progress of paying down debt and savings toward goals. My finances are just starting to get settled after we moved to Amsterdam in April. I had been holding on to some cash because I wasn't too sure about how much our living expenses would be, but it's looking like my paycheck (in Euros) will be enough to cover everything. I'm leaving the money in US savings accounts (at my bank and Emigrant Direct) for the automatic transfers to my student loans and my Roth IRA, but I do need to do some thinking about how to manage my finances on two-continents! That'll be a post for another time, though.

Here are the numbers:

Debt:
Student loan, $13,176.35 @ 3.25%
Savings:
Vanguard Roth IRA, $9,970.34
Roth 401(k), contributed $2,980.00 so far
Employer retirement plan, I think around $12,000 (I'm unable to access the account at the moment)
Cash savings, $13,326.66
Living expense money in Dutch bank account: $2,226.74 (€1412.64)

Spender's situation is not quite the same as mine.
Debt:
Student Loans, $15,182.10 (at rates between 5-7%)
Credit card debt, $386.02 (although my typing that has prompted Spender to log on and pay it off).
Savings:
Roth IRA $751.76
Cash savings, $1,965.07

My personal goals are to pay down my student loans (despite really wanting to pay them off, I had been saving in a HYSA because the interest rate was better. Now that the interest rates have come down, that's no longer worth it), and to max out my Roth IRA. I'd also like to resume contributing to my 401(k), which I put on hold when I moved. My employer contributes a fixed amount to our retirement plan each year in December, so I'm not missing out on any free money by not contributing now. I also have a goal of doing a lot of travelling this year, and will have to be careful to balance being frugal and saving for the future with taking advantage of the opportunity for some amazing experiences.

My goals for Spender are simple: Pay off those loans!! and develop a savings habit.

Welcome to my (pf) life

When I decided it would be fun to start a personal finance blog, I mentioned it to Spender, and he thought it would be a great idea. I was excited about doing something together, and thought it would be a little different than the blogs that are out that. Spender has expressed his desire to get more serious about personal finances, and thought this would be a good way to go about it.

I set up a pretty basic blog, gave us each usernames and everything, and wrote my first post. Everthing is good! We have this idea that we'll try to alternate posts, so I encourage Spender to write an introductory post. He keeps saying he will...but it's now been about a month. His main explanation is, "I dont know what to write."

So I'm making the executive decision that I will try to post regularly, and he can post however often (or not) he wants to. It's a little less joint blog, a little more my blog with some input from him. Not really a big deal, because I'm the one that wanted the blog in the first place.

The thing is, this is so totally representative of how we run our finances. I get excited about doing things like sitting down and making a joint budget or figuring out savings goals. Spender listens to me, gives a bit of input, and then goes on his way. His main explanation is, "I don't know what we should do." He doesn't always do the things we talk about (like open a ING account) and goes back to his not-focused-on-responsible-personal-finance ways. It's not really fun to be left as the one who has to be in charge of everything, but the alternative is for nobody to be in charge.

So I will take the lead, post whether or not Spender does, and see if reading all this in print will encourage Spender to change his ways.

The beginnings of all things are small

I'm a Saver. He's a Spender. This is the story of how we make that work and achieve our financial (and other) goals.

I want to start this blog mainly as a way to give us some accountability in both our finances and the way we deal with them together. It's also a way to get Spender more excited about personal finance in general.

The main posts on this blog will probably be thoughts about budgeting, saving, spending, setting goals, sharing resources, compromising, and learning from one another. We'll also throw in some posts about being expats and travelling frugally. We'll each post separately with our own thoughts and perspectives - sometimes taking turns, sometimes on the same topic.

I hope that some readers out there will find us and be able to learn from our experiences, our successes and our failures. Or at least be entertained a bit along the way.