The other day, I shared our household/family binder which I am really happy with, but my organisational goal was to create both a household and finance binder, so I'm pleased to now be checking that one off the list! My husband and I decided late last year that we needed a better system for managing our budget, and tracking our debt repayments and savings. I am in no way a financial expert, but thought I would share with you the new systems we are implementing that will hopefully help us take better control of our finances.
I went with another Kikki-K binder for this project because I really like the cloth cover and inside pattern, plus it's nice and sturdy. I made all the printables inside the binder myself so that it suited our needs. The page dividers were labelled again with my Dymo labeller so I could easily access each different section.
UPDATE: Get your 7 FREE finance binder printables by clicking on the button below to get you started on your finance organising journey!
The first page, like the household binder, holds our 'Important contact information', including bank and mortgage details, and tax and super information.
We are planning on having a once-a-month budget night, where we track all our spending for the month and plan for the month ahead (this part will be done straight onto a digital spreadsheet). We'll also be checking direct debits have been taken out for the month; paying bills, credit-card and debts; and transferring money into our savings account. This list should help to keep us on track (although I think we might also need to schedule in a wine or two on budget night!).
The next section of the binder is for 'Savings', where we can track how much we are putting towards each specific savings goal. It'll be a great feeling to not have to worry about coming up with extra when December rolls around!
The next section is for 'Bills'. I placed a binder wallet with velcro tab in here (similar here) to pop in any bills or info, which can all be dealt when we have our budget night.
PSST.... Don't forget to grab your own finance binder printables to help keep track of where your money is going, and encourage you to pay off debts and increase your savings faster!
This 'Finance checklist' is a place to record all bills that are paid, either by auto (monthly direct debit) or if we physically pay it. We can then enter the date paid and the reference number, and all the information can be stored in the one place.
The final section of the finance binder is for 'Debt repayments'. I think it will be really positive for us to see the progress we are making on our debts each month. Paying these off is high on the priority list this year!!
So that's the finance binder in a nutshell - I'm hoping it works well for us!
Now I can officially check that one off the list! Still have all of February to work on these, so think I'm still on track.
