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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Bills and Budgeting

I. Hate. Budgeting.

I. Hate. Bill Paying.

By default I am the one in this house who takes care of paying the bills. It was never really stated that I would, but Jon never really has needed to watch bill due dates and make sure they get payed and make sure there is enough money in checking to do so and I had before we got married. So I took it on.

And I hate it.

I hate it mostly becuase I know where the money is going and I am the one who worries about how much will be taken out of savings to cover things that come up. I try to keep certain bills down in order to save more and struggle sometimes to do so. On the other end I am the one saying that we or cannot afford this or that and I hate that as well. I feel like I tell Jon what he can and can't have. And when a large bill comes in that I didn't expect I have to corner him for the reciepts that he forgot to give me. Again.

Jon is not a bad guy. And he is not bad with money. He is just very disorganized. Very. To give you an idea. I once asked him what would happen if he were now in charge of bills. His answer? Most likely nothing would get paid for a month while he tried to sort through everything. Things would get shut off due to not being payed. That would be his wake up call. Then he would figure everything out and get on tract. Wonderful! With that lovely thought in mind I prepaid MANY things before Owen was born in case something happened and I couldn't get to the computer to get things done. And I sat Jon down and showed him how to use our bill paying with the bank and how to use Quicken (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE for balancing our checkbook)

Jon is a disorganized procrastinator. Just ask the cop who pulled Jon over for an expired inspection sticker. I'm sorry, an expired rejected inspection sticker. So that means a $50 ticket plus the cost of another inspection (in MA if you fail inspection but fix the car in an allotted amount of time then you don't have to pay for the second inspection) which means a grand total of $80 we now pay extra becuase he didn't fix the car soon enough (on top of parts for the car). And that happened in August. Now ask me if the ar is fixed yet. NO. The car didn't get fixed bot becuase we didn't have the money or the time. But becuase Jon put it off.

Sometimes I feel like I worry over money more than Jon does for that very reason. I see the numbers, what we have and what we owe (I try to really keep tract of credit card spending as well) and know how much will go into savings, or come out if need be each month. He does not. He knows the roof stays over our heads, the electricity stays on, water keeps coming and the pellets for winter heat are in our driveway. He knows his credit card has not been rejected and that it does not carry a balance. And he knows that I really try very very hard to stick to a budget.

Jon shoulders the responsibility of making sure we have enough money to do all those things by going to work each day and keeping his job. He wants to switch school distrcits both for a better district and bigger salary. He works before school doing breakfast watch for extra as well as picking up afterschool activities and occasional weekend workshops when he can. So he does make sure that the money is provided and I love him for that. I also appreciate that he originally left a job he loved when I got pregnant a little sooner that we expected (we weren't preventing but had ready MANY places that it could take several months. not so.) so that he would have a larger salary and I could leave work once M was born. He does his part, more than his part.

But every once in awhile (usually on bill paying days when BIG bills are due) I wish I could be one of those 1950's housewives who were given their money for the house each week and didn't worry their pretty little heads over the rest. I hope that doesn't sound too awful. I just mean that I would like to not have the responsibility every once in awhile. It would be a nice change for a few weeks!

For now I pay the bills. We all worry less and our credit score is happier for it.

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