Comments on: How We Manage Our Money on a Daily Basis

By: Full Disclosure

Full Disclosure — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:36:31 +0000

Thanks for showing us what’s under your financial hood. I really enjoy seeing how the disciplined approach to financial planning and saving can pay off. Unfortunately, I am not disciplined enough to pay off the credit cards every month, so for now they are in a block of ice in the freezer! I need to take another look at an ING savings account.

Thanks for the info!
fulldisclosuremoment.com

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:32:35 +0000

Thanks, Terry. That is a good option.

By: Terry B.

Terry B. — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:48:42 +0000

I just wanted to say that you CAN use Quicken from more than one computer. All you need to do is set up a free account on Dropbox.com and store your Quicken files in your Dropbox folder. This allows you to sync the Quicken file across multiple computers, via the Dropbox folder.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:20:57 +0000

Holly, We use the following credit cards for our automatic payments: Discover More Card Discover Open Road Chase Freedom(SM) Card We are usually able to do things like cell phone bills, internet/cable, and some utilities. We are not able to set up our health insurance on automatic payment with out credit card, but we can pay monthly with our credit card at no additional charge (they allow automatic payments from checking and savings accounts, so I think is is to save them from the processing fees; fewer people are willing to call in every month with a credit card number as many people prefer automatic payments). Our mortgage company charges a hefty fee to process payments via credit card and it is not worth it for us. So you can't do everything with your credit cards, but you can usually set up the smaller monthly payments. For us those add up to several thousand dollars in charges each year, and we typically receive 1% or more of that back in cash rewards.

By: Holly

Holly — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:05:57 +0000

Thanks so much for the reply, Ryan. I do have a Chase card (not sure if it’s the Freedom card), so I will be looking into their automatic monthly payment terms/conditions (or setting it up thru the payee, whichever will work best).

By: Holly

Holly — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:06:14 +0000

I would like to know which cc’s are being used to pay the monthly recurring bills. I have thought of doing this as well to get the rewards, but it seems that either the credit card assesses a fee for the service or the utility co., insurance co., or bank (mortgage) charges a fee. The fees are large enough that the rewards would not be worth it. Any suggestions out there?

By: Lulu

Lulu — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:35:57 +0000

Your system sounds similar to mine, except ING is my main account. I also pay bills via credit cards and then use ING to pay the credit cards.

I like how you treat irregular income as a surprise and live off your salary because that is really the best approach. This allows you to plan much better because you know what your salary is going to be but the irregular side income can fluctuate wildly from month to month.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:58:06 +0000

JMK, it sounds like you and your family have a well managed system in place! My system is less hands on, but I’ve fond it works for us. We don’t travel as often as you and your family, so we use cash back credit cards instead of travel points. But points cards an be a great way to get discounts or even free airfare. Thanks for sharing!