Spender here. Wait?! What? Spender is going to post to this blog?! I truly loathe disappointing Saver and I want to make every effort I can to save money and contribute to our financial stability and success. Perhaps contributing to this blog will help me stay focused on my fiscal well being. I read a story about the therapy of writing and why blogging is healthy. Maybe that's what I need. A place to sort out these issues.
Keeping track of how much we're spending each day hasn't been a very smooth process for me yet. Surprisingly, I know every penny I've spent this week, however, when I went to input it into the spreadsheet system Saver setup I ran into trouble. I know she made it into a simpler system but it still doesn't make sense to me with the multiple spreadsheets and categories and stuff. It might have helped if we had discussed exactly how to use this tool before she left but I thought it would be straight forward. Well straight forward in my mind is something completely different in hers. I definitely understand the concept behind it but nothing makes sense to me in the way it's laid out. In the mean time, I'm using a calendar and recording my purchases details for each day. That should keep me on track until we are on the same page.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Milestones
I'm in Belgium this week, at a week-long Dutch language course. (Half of Belgium speaks Flemmish, which is just a dialect of the Dutch they speak in the Netherlands).
June 1st (yesterday), was Spender's and my five year anniversary. We now know each other better than we've ever known anyone else, though there are still occasionally surprises. We're still complete opposites in almost every way, but now are differences are much more likely to make us crack up laughing than cause a fight.
I still am working on the the balance of where to accept that we'll always be worlds apart (i.e., Spender loves to go out and hang out with friends all night, I like to go to bed around 10:30) and where try to bring us closer together. To be clear, I know Spender is not going to change much of anything just because I want him to. But by setting a good example and being supportive and showing him the benefits of certain lifestyle choices (not to mention working out the math of paying only minimum payments) I do think Spender may eventually become Not-such-a-Spender or even A-little-bit-of-a-Saver. (In Dutch that would be Saverje).
Not related to our anniversary, we decided we would have a new focus on having a budget and saving money. Going forward, we are tracking every penny. We set up a spreadsheet on google docs to keep track of spending and budgeting. I had made a fairly fancy-schmancy one in excel, but that could only live on my laptop. Instead, I've now made a much simpler version that lives online in google spreadsheets. This was Spender can not only update it with his spending every night, he can also see the status of the budget whenever he wants. If I can figure out a way to make sure it stays anonymous, I'll even post it for everyone to see.
June 1st (yesterday), was Spender's and my five year anniversary. We now know each other better than we've ever known anyone else, though there are still occasionally surprises. We're still complete opposites in almost every way, but now are differences are much more likely to make us crack up laughing than cause a fight.
I still am working on the the balance of where to accept that we'll always be worlds apart (i.e., Spender loves to go out and hang out with friends all night, I like to go to bed around 10:30) and where try to bring us closer together. To be clear, I know Spender is not going to change much of anything just because I want him to. But by setting a good example and being supportive and showing him the benefits of certain lifestyle choices (not to mention working out the math of paying only minimum payments) I do think Spender may eventually become Not-such-a-Spender or even A-little-bit-of-a-Saver. (In Dutch that would be Saverje).
Not related to our anniversary, we decided we would have a new focus on having a budget and saving money. Going forward, we are tracking every penny. We set up a spreadsheet on google docs to keep track of spending and budgeting. I had made a fairly fancy-schmancy one in excel, but that could only live on my laptop. Instead, I've now made a much simpler version that lives online in google spreadsheets. This was Spender can not only update it with his spending every night, he can also see the status of the budget whenever he wants. If I can figure out a way to make sure it stays anonymous, I'll even post it for everyone to see.
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