kannibul

2 incomes, no kids.

Use Microsoft Money, input all your incomes and your bills.

I have 3 checking accounts. One for income deposits and electronic payments, one for expenses / purchases (gas, groceries, starbucks, eating out, movies, etc), and one for unbudgeted expenses (ie, starbucks, eating out, movies) - weekly, we transfer $XYZ that covers our budgeted amount for groceries and gas. What we don't spend on groceries and gas, goes into unbudgeted. Unbudgeted covers anything "extra".

It sounds like a pain, and in a way it is, but, it also forces you to realize what you have and what you DON'T have...and makes you a lot more stingy on buying something.

Using Microsoft Money, you can project out future income and bills - I have mine currently clocked out to the end of next year, which helps in knowing where those extra checks will hit, and keeping everything above $0. We also have a "Buffer" line item (for us, $600 in income/deposits, $100 in expenses, $0 in unbudgeted) - to help cover anything that we "oops" on.

In addition:

Bought a house that was literally 1/2 what they approved us for.

Last December, I refinanced our Civic for as much as we could get, was originally set up on a balloon payment after 48 months, and it had higher than a 10% APR, refinanced it, got a lower APR (around 6%), did it for 5 years for the most I could get from the bank - used the "overage" to pay off my motorcycle (which also had an APR over 10%). This reduced our expenses immediately, which I started rolling to my Credit Card (APR over 10%), which after that, will go to her card which had a higher balance, but lower APR (and higher min. payment)

I also have (and will) use this years tax return. I also found out I misfiled my previous 2 years taxes, and refiled them, getting a lot more back - enough to pay for my credit card, then allow me to fill it back up, and now it's half paid off again (due to payments, not tax returns)

Lastly, I CLOSED our credit card accounts - this locked the interest rates. I still have to respond to the credit card company when they send a notice of change, and declare that I'm not interested in raising my interest rate (duh?)

Not a lot of people know they can close a credit card account while it has a balance and it DOES NOT hurt your credit score.

Even though I bought the Z, I'm still chucking a good amoutn of money to the credit cards - more than my Z payment and civic payment combined...but, I also don't have cable tv at home, or a phone at home (cell phone is a pay as you go as well - it's cheaper if you don't talk/text ($10/mo vs $??/mo!)), and my wife and I car pool, which saves quite a bit, when you think about it (we work close to eachother, and drive the civic which gets decent mileage)

Anyhow...I'll spill more if anyone's interested...