anyone dealing with a spouse with a disability like with my husband?

sigh.

seems like the system I set up last Fall still isn't working like I need it to. I thought at this point it'd be much more streamlined, but, afraid it's not.

I've got my husband using only one account - it's a sole owner checking account with a debit card. I put money in there on the 15th, and he spends it during the month.

I load it with fixed amount for:
gas
medical
all personal (clothing, access, etc)

but the last one, the personal, just isn't working, it's not literal enough for him. But let's set that aside for a minute.

We still trade off on meal planning and grocery shopping. I take how many Saturday's in the month, and then look at what the commission check has been. We usually spend $120 a week on groceries....so if it's HIS week to shop for groceries, I transfer $120 to his account and he goes off to the store.

I've been using Quicken, and that $120 isn't expensed to groceries at that point, just shows up as a transfer from main checking to DH's account. If he overspends, his bad. I rarely give him more money as I rarely have it.

IF while at the grocery store, and he buys dogfood (such as when he gets groceries at walmart) he knows he ought to ring up the dogfood separately and I reimb. him line item by line item.

trying to get to my question:

I'm wondering if the transfer TO his account ought to be when I expense the groceries. I do not care where he spends the money. But Quicken is expensing the groceries when it recognizes the grocery store. But then the Transfers just are that. Transfers.

Speaking from someone who has tried to get her spouse to be more involved with finances, I've yet to find anything like that to work as easily as expected. I know for my DH, having to deal with something like dog food as a separate thing just isn't going to happen.

We have two main credit cards and I asked him to only use the one when he has to buy stuff for work (and get reimbursed) and it just doesn't happen. He uses the one he's used to grabbing and that's it.

I finally just decided it wasn't worth the stress it was causing me to try and deal with it.

Can you get him to give you his receipts and do it that way? That's the only way I can manage it.

I know you use Quicken, Kimberly, so this is probably just a mechanical question: do you track that credit card he uses on Quicken? When exactly do you expense the stuff?

Say Eric goes to Walmart. He buys some groceries and some items for himself. Right now I download the transactions in Quicken. I have been expensing the items as he spends them. But now, I'm thinking I ought to expense the items as I transfer money into his accounts.

if he goes over, that's his deal. If he spends under, he can keep it, again, that's his deal.

We use our main Amex card for house related items, groceries, etc. Then he has a mastercard that honestly I just said, as long as the monthly bill isn't over $500, I'm not going to track it at all. This was REALLY hard for someone as nitpicky and detail oriented as I am when it comes to money. He uses that account for work charges that get reimbursed, anything to do with tennis (restringing, new tennis balls, etc) which is his passion, buying beer.

I simply put $500 in the budget to pay that bill and if it's less great.

The Amex I budget to the penny every month. All of our bank accounts and credit accounts are hooked into our Quicken and I download all new charges every morning. The charges on the Amex get plugged into our monthly budget so I can see each day how we're doing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "expense" - I pay all the bills.

so in other words, you have a line item that might 'just' say "Mastercard" that you budget $500 for each month...he's either over or under that...you keep it as one category....doesn't matter the detail. yes?

that's essentially what I was aiming for. In DH's case it's a checking account with debit card attached. I listed that account in Quicken...and the funding shows up as a transfer, essentially that is happening...and when he spends the money on gas, for example, it'll show up as a gas 'expense'. that's what I'm saying.

In other words, I keep track of his expenses within Quicken, only because I wanted to track anything related to our taxes, namely medical. So it got me involved. But I want to back out of it now. Might even start over with Quicken to the beginning of 2012. ugh.

so his purchases at the store are 'expensed' when he uses his debit card, and the reimb are showing up as transfers.

But I could do it the other way around. I give him $120 to go grocery shopping, I could 'expense' that lump as groceries, which it essentially is.

does that explain it?

what would happen if I just delete his account within quicken? or would it totally screw up historical categories and transactions?

Hmmmm...This may not be easy for me to explain since I set it up for me only.

My budget is split in two ways. On the left, I have the whole year which is essentially my "check register" - everything that comes and goes financially for us. One line item on that is AMEX.

On the right side is the breakdown of everything charged with our Amex. Except for his mastercard allowance (which I don't keep track of) we charge EVERYTHING on our Amex. Gas, groceries, petsmart, all bills paid online, charity, gifts given, and yes, a misc category.

Using the Amex for everything makes keeping track of it super easy. I simply download the transactions and then plug those into my excel budget.

I'm not sure how I'd adapt this for someone using a debit card. We don't use them at all.

so you use Excel for budgeting? and not Quicken?

I use Quicken to download and keep track for taxes, etc. I use an excel sheet for regular budgeting. I don't care for Quicken's budget system.

PM me your email address and I'll send you a sample of copy of my excel sheet.

I don't really use Quicken to budget also, tho it's great for tracking.

I think I'm just asking an accounting question. What to debit, what to credit, when it all comes down to it.

Since the point of my transfering a lump sum to him every month, automatically, is that I don't have to pay attention to the details, I can turn it into a split transaction, debit the subtotals, and leave it at that.

hmmm, will have to tweek some stuff. not sure I can go back and change what's done from last Fall, unless I start a whole nother data file and start from 2012.

Hi, happy to see you and hope all went well for DS at college and coping with meds, I know you were worrying.

I've used Quicken since it started. The newer versions are more detailed and allow more tracking options. You just choose the level of detail that you need and find useful. Do you care how much is spent each year on dog food? Do you care whether it's bought at W/Mart or some other outlet? Do you want to know how much you spend on food [edibles] and what percentage or actual dollar amount is spent in a food store on non-edibles like cleaning products & paper goods? Some of us add restaurant spending to the 'food' category. Is it important to you to be able to compare food spending in December 2010, 2011 to plan for 2012?

You likely need to track medical/tax related expenses and have a full picture of what is re-reimbursed or reimbursable. I track vehicle expenses as some are related to business and I compare previous years maintenance/mileage/repairs for each of the vehicles. It also helps remind me of upcoming costs. The 'split transaction' feature allows you to track categories whether on credit card or Bank card.

One year I tracked costs of working to verify the income warranted the expense. Can you imagine how surprised I was to discover I'm better at managing money and time when I'm working than when I've taken the semester off.

Hi Cyd, thanks for inquiring aboit DS, he is doing very well. It was a bit frustrating in the Fall cause he had to see a doc near his college to get his labs tracked, but it was good accountability. He lost a bunch of weight and was off all insulin by January!!!! Only takes the metformin now.

I guess I could just have one line item on the budget and call it DH. maybe one subcategory called DH-reimb. For the times he does shopping and i pay him back. Brain tired right now.

I like to keep the auto exp separate....the relevance for me is how much one vehicle costs, not the total gas we spend combined.

My biggest conundrum is how deeply im still involved in the joint finances. A year ago i was moving towards separation....physically in same hoise but separate bedrooms. Separate socially. But im still over involved financially.

Gabby, I shut down my Quicken computer for the moment, but if I'm understanding you, you transfer $120 to him when he shops.

How is that transfer set up? Is it just set up to a category? ie his name? Or is it setup to an account?

if it's set up to a separate account within Quicken you can then go into that account and allocate the entire $120 to groceries or split out the dog food or whatever.

My bf and I have separate finances but we do try and share the groceries. What I did so I could track how much we spend as a couple is create an account in Quicken with his name. I then just enter anything he spends for groceries (that I know about) in that account. I don't care if he spends it in cash or debit card, I just want to track it. For my own expenses, I have my own cash account and checking accounts that I itemize fully. Groceries are really all I'm concerned about with him.

hi Diane,
it's set up as a transfer, cause that's what I'm doing in online banking. I have the monthly allotment set up automatically, and the grocery monies I set up can vary in amount (depending on that commission check divided by the number of saturdays in the month.

whenever he shops for something 'else' I transfer that to him.

what I think I can do, but it's time consuming. go back in quicken and make it not be a transfer. it's impossible to 'split' a transfer.

I have been
downloading his account, to catch what he's actually spending. but I don't want to do that anymore. I don't need to know. But instead of deleting his account entirely, I am going back to those account to account transfers and changing them: in other words they hit the budget when I move the money.

Gabby, what are you transferring it to? An account? If that's the case, go into the account and put the expenses in. It's not like it has to balance or anything, you just want to track what he spends in that case.

I know it's really frustrating dealing with someone else's money especially when they are not that good at managing it! :-/

update: I deleted his account from quicken entirely. I went through and changed all the 'transfers' to expenses. It won't really solve my tracking for medical, but at year end, I can search his bank account and sort it to find out what he spends on medical.

helps just knowing I cannot split transfers, and it went from there.

OMG, I didn't know you were doing a major refit. The kitchen as the hub of the house creates chaos when the cupboards are emptied and come down, the sink is disconnected and the appliances are shoved to where ever they will fit!

We did that in our 1st house and a 2nd time a dozen years ago in the last house when I vowed n-e-v-e-r again! Inspite of detailed planning, nearly everything that could go wrong morphed to disaster. It was all those years ago but so traumatic it still makes me shudder.

Hat's off to you, if you need to vent we're here to listen. Gets lots of sleep and hang on to your sense of humor with both hands.