Managing Money: Get Everyone Involved pt2...

For the second part of Managing Money: Get Everyone Involved, we are going to talk about establishing a work area, cash management and follow-up. Once again this is just how we are doing it, you may find tweaks that work better for you; go for it! We tweaked the Ramsey system for us take any of this you want and turn it into something that fits your personality. It is the only way to make long-term change.

Work Area - I firmly believe that having someplace, a desk, a box, even a bedroom drawer where everything is kept is an important thing. The second, is to make sure that your significant other knows that space as well. This should have files on all bills to store afterward and your checkbook as well as credit cards, if you aren't prepared to chop them up yet. You want your family to understand where all this information is in case of anything happening to you. Banker Girl has a really good article about why here.

Cash Management - For us, this has been key. We use cash for groceries, dining out, entertainment, gas for the car, the kids allowance and ours. This is where we have made most of our improvement in making budget. My wife didn't want to be in charge of an area, but since we are in this together, she took over all cash funds, except the car and allowances. She is 100% in charge of those funds. She has done so well, and I am not just saying that cause she will probably read this :), we have cut nearly 33% off of our grocery bill through better planning, coupons and using only cash.

This has really also squished the Budget Police mentality around here. As I said before it is OUR Families money, our family should have a say! The kids have their votes on how to spend the money as well. They make their pitches on dinner and when we go. So when they used to push to eat out all of the time, now they are often the first to say, "I want pizza this weekend, we better wait!" 180 degree turnaround!

Follow Up - We have a review every weekend after I get paid to review how we did for the previous two weeks. We then go to the bank and get the cash in the denomination we need. I bring one of the kids each time so they see how much money this really is and where their allowance cash comes from. Initially we got some strange looks asking for $x37 in $50's, $20's, $10's, $5's and $1's but now they know us and it goes pretty quick. I may have even convinced some of them to try it as well.

We will also have a quarterly review to check and see if our levels are right: Did we over budget for Gas? (not likely), Under for Groceries? etc.. The most important part is that we discuss it as a family. In learning these lessons now they will hopefully find that personal finance, budgeting and avoiding bad debt gives them a leg-up later in life.

And that is the best thing we can do for them...and ourselves...