Allowance for Grown-Ups

Most of us had an allowance growing up, but few continue that practice into adulthood, and I want change that! I've watched one too many fights between spouses that look something like this:

Husband brings home new football jersey (or unnecessary power tools, or new pedicure, etc) and wife says "seriously? You already have a closet full of jerseys...do you really need another one?" Wife feels like she was an idiot for foregoing happy hour with her girlfriends to keep the family in-budget, and Husband feels like he spends all his time working to buy his beloved jerseys and he gets nagging instead of new sports wear. (confession: I have been guilty of being the spender just as much as my husband has...it's just an illustration!)

I've found that the partners in this scenario can be any two people with conjoined money who want to buy something frivolous. Could be spa treatments, fancy dinners, sports memorabilia, expensive coffee drinks, or lunch out at work...anything that is not a required joint expense. As this exchange continues over time, you get resentment for your partner's spending and no incentive to save money for the good of the family. Basically, it's a lose-lose situation.

The hubby and I devised our allowance system about a year ago and after some tinkering, the results have been fantastic for us. Each Sunday, Hubby and I each get our weekly allowance (your family budget will determine the amount), transferred from the Joint checking account to our Personal accounts. From that point, the money is yours and the way you choose to spend it is not tracked in any way. Allowance is intended to pay for anything unnecessary or personal, and whatever you save you keep.

For our family, the allowance is for eating out, clothing, spa time, electronics, hobbies, date night activities, and gifts.

Since we've settled in to the allowance system, I no longer resent my Hubby for buying shoes every week and he doesn't care how many pedicures I get. The other perk is that when you receive a gift from your spouse, you know that it wasn't just your money used to buy you a gift. He saved up and sacrificed his own purchases to get you a gift. I can tell you it means so much more that way!

So whichever way you alter the system to work for you, try it out. You may find yourself saving more money than you were before, and feeling less guilty about bringing home that new purse or keeping your monthly pedicures, even though your family is on a budget. Try it out and let me know how it works for you!

Updated April 2016:

How does this allowance system work now that I am home with our baby and my husband is working outside the home? Exactly the same! The amount is lower because we are bringing home less money, and he gets an additional stipend to buy lunch at work (since I am more able to eat at home), but the fact that he brings home all our income does not mean that my work taking care of our child and home is not important to the running of this family. Our hours spent working are treated as equally important, whether its inside or outside the home.

Can Molly do $$ too?

When I started out this blog, 3 years and a whopping 5 posts ago, I wanted to share those software (and hardware) programs and tips that were so great, they should go way beyond the walls of the techy world. But in that time, I got out of debt, got married, and while I still find techy tips to share, I find I have a lot more family finance tips to share. The tips that I think everyone knows, but I find my friends (or dental hygenist, as the case may be) perking up their ears and asking lots of questions, because they don't know about these little family finance nuggets.

So I am re-launching this blog to address a little of each, under the umbrella of "Family Management Tools and Tips" and hopefully someone can learn something from my hubby's and my struggles and mistakes to avoid making some of the same costly ones!

Enjoy!

The Sheer Joy that is Dropbox

Dropbox should pay me for how much free advertising I give them. Or at least give me their great services for free. Which they do!

Dropbox is a web-based service that sets up a folder on your desktop (or wherever you choose to keep it) and automatically syncs whatever you put in it to the internet, and/or to folders on other computers that you set up. Essentially, it means that if you have two or more computers (say, home and work), you can have an identical folder on each computer.

Seriously?

No more carrying around a thumb drive? Exactly!

No more emailing files to myself and then editing them and forgeting which one is the latest version? Precisely!

Plus, they have a nifty online version of your folder (password protected, of course) so that if you can't download the program on your computer (like I can't at work), you can still see all your Dropbox files on the go.



And if you think that's it, oh no! There's more!

You can share files with other people on Dropbox. For example, my husband and I have shared folders for our budget stuff, insurance documents, and pet docs. My parents and I had a shared folder when we were planning our wedding, to keep track of our wedding budget, guest list, vendor contracts, and to-do lists. Our wedding DJ had a shared folder with us where he would drop in music for us to give him feedback on, which was much faster and more convenient than having him email us songs every day.

You get a bunch of space for free when you sign up, and if that's not enough, you can pay to get more space. Personally, I haven't run out of space yet, and use my account pretty liberally. As for safety goes, it is password protected and seems perfectly safe to me, but I don't have truly sensitive information uploaded, such as other account passwords or banking data.

There are lots of other uses for Dropbox, I'm sure, and I know there are plenty of features I don't use. Try it out and see if you don't squeal with glee at how much easier Dropbox makes your life!

Car Repair - Newlywed Style

The lesson learned this month had less to do with techy can-do's and more to do with using good new-fashioned googling to save some bucks. A few weeks ago, I went to roll down my car window and heard a not-so-delightful clacking sound. After talking over the options with my hubby, we decided that I should not roll down my window, given the possibility that it could fall into the door panel and break. Good plan, until I went to the drive-up window at the pharmacy, forgot all about the window, rolled it down, and it was rendered stuck. Open. Ugh.

I took it to the dealer to figure out the problem, to be told it would cost $600. Ugh again.

With my best can-do attitude, I did some googling to see if there were any other options. Happily, I found an incredibly thorough tutorial online for replacing window regulator clips (the fancy name for "my window won't go up the way it's supposed to"), found the parts on Amazon for under $100 and the husband and I decided we would do it ourselves!

Then we kind of got used to the window being down, and got busy with life, and forgot to replace it. Until I came out to my car one morning and it had been broken into. Technically, the window was down, so there wasn't much "breaking" required to get into the car, but the lousy guy who broke in had a nice time throwing my maps around and breaking off the handle to my locked glove box, in hopes of getting to my Steve Miller Band tapes, I guess.

Reminded by our friendly neighborhood thief that it was in fact time to get down to business changing the door parts, we set up in the garage last Saturday and got to work. The tutorial turned out to be fantastic - over 30 pages, with full color photos, showing how to remove every last piece, change the regulator clips, and put it back together.



We ran into a small snag when we discovered that my lovely VW car-builders had chosen to bolt in the speaker in a way that we had to make an emergency trip to the hardware store so my darling husband could have the pleasure of removing the bolts with a combination of a metal cutting drill bit thing, a metal wedge, and a big hammer.

All told, the project took about 5 hours and cost just $115. And turned out to be a great test of newlywed communication and teamwork skills. Luckily, we passed those tests with flying colors.

Google Reader

Isn't it fun when you find a new blog or news site, you follow it for a few days, and then forget all about it? Or, more likely, you find yourself pressing "refresh" every hour in hopes your brother has posted something new to his blog, only to find yourself close to tears with disappointment?

Google Reader ("G-Reader") is a piece of the Google-net that tracks and receives updates from all your sites through RSS feeds to one spot. Because all your new feeds are on one page, G-Reader will keep you informed and up-to-date, saving you valuable work hours and saving you from grave, hourly disappointment. To get set up, go to reader.google.com and sign in under your gmail name and password. Then pick the sites you want (such as this one!) and put their URL in the "add subscription" box on the left (or go to the site and click the little orange RSS feed button to get the feed). You will now be following those sites, and every time they upload, the posting will show up in that main window, for you to peruse at your leisure.

Once you're all set up, there are some fun "extras" that make the experience even more worthwhile. Once you start reading posts, you'll notice some options at the bottom of each entry. "Share" and "Share with note" will cause that posting to show up in the lists of each contact from your google contacts (who also use G-Reader). This means I get to enjoy what my friends and family find interesting, which gives a great flavor for what's going on in their lives (and it's so much easier and more appreciated than emailing your entire contact list every little msn article you think is cool). Sort of like snooping around their desk to see what they're reading, but easier!

If you use G-Reader, leave me a comment about additional perks...time for me to learn something new too!

Google Applications

Those smarties over at Google have won my heart, and they just keep getting better! This is the umbrella post to what will be several separate posts highlighting my favorite google apps, but I thought it would be helpful to start with a big-picture explanation.

Google has lots of web-based applications (ie you don't (usually) need to install anything on your computer and you can access your information from anwhere). They are easy to use, the applications can all be accessed from a main page, and when you're signed in once, all your information is available to you. Best of all, the appliations are all free, and the advertising on the right of the screen in pretty unobtrusive. Here's a list of some of the google apps I will be advocating (read: I LOVE!) in future posts: gmail, g-calendar, igoogle, google docs, google reader, and g-chat (with video!).

The easiest way to start is by getting a gmail account, which will be your username for all the applications. You can do that here: www.gmail.com. And don't worry if you're not ready to change your email account...there are ways to easily forward mail to and from different accounts while you decide if you want to change accounts permanently (also to be addressed later).

So go out, get a gmail account, and breathlessly wait for me to open doors you never even dreamed existed (thank you, Auntie Mame!)...

Can Molly really do?

I have a blog, day 1. I have been thinking about this blog for some time, so I'll give some background on my reasons for finally taking the giant leap into blog-world.

As the lucky ladyfriend of an IT professional and electronics enthusiast, I often find that his advice on programs, gadgets, and other "techy" things just don't work for me. I mostly use my computer for email, online shopping, paying bills, and watching tv. For the most part, the electronic stuff that really gets him excited just doesn't do it for me. Usually, he'll install something for me and a week later ask, "so what do you think about (insert gadget-of-the-week here)? Isn't it awesome?!" My reply 95% of the time: "what are you talking about?"

But, every once in a while, he brings me a gem. A gadget, website, or program that is easy to install, easy to use, makes my life easier (or more fun!) and most importantly, is so enjoyable that I ACTUALLY USE IT. This 5% of the time, my response to his question is to squeal excitedly at him, "honey!! Thank you SOOOOO much for that (insert life-changing-gadget here)!!! I should tell (insert perfectly-tech-comfortable-but-not-quite-savvy girl friend here)...she would LOVE it!"

And that's where this blog comes in. I'm going to post about the electronics that get ME excited. And, just maybe, you'll squeal as much as I do when you find that thing that makes your life a little easier too.