Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Planning for Commission Checks

Our finances are a bit different than most of our friends (and what I've seen from other PF blogs.) I get commission checks every three months. I get a small, but not inconsequential, base salary which provides a paycheck every 2 weeks. Still, I have to budget carefully so that we don't overextend ourselves. In an ideal world, we would live on my base salary and we could save everything "extra" that comes in from commission. However, we just haven't gotten to that point yet.

My husband stays at home with our daughter in lieu of daycare or other childcare situations. We both decided that it was more important for her to stay with us in her early years than for both of us to actively pursue our careers. (I would have graciously delayed my career over my husband's, but it just didn't work out that way.) It's actually worked out pretty fantastic because he has had the flexibility to travel with me when I'm out of town on business. He is still actively pursuing his real estate career, but it is secondary to his daddy-daycare duties and my job. Have I said how incredible he is. He's a fabulous father; he is a frugal grocery shopper; he does the laundry and a lot of the house work. (I know he'll read this soon, so thank you dear!)

Back to the point... To make sure that we have enough money for savings and bills each month, I write out checks or schedule automatic payments three months out. I can see in Quicken what our finances are for the next 3 months. The bills, which are paid by check, are written, stamped and filed by date for when the bills need to be mailed out. I feel more in control with this system. I use to just buy everything with credit cards and then pay them off with my commission check, but since I've been committed to spending less than we make, this system has worked great.

Does this confirm my Type A personality? Or is this normal for an organized person?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No- you're type A alright! lol A compliment coming from a B-. lol

I read that you have passive income from RE- are you actively investing or just have a couple? (Is that too personal?) I like meeting other investors!