Money Management: Budgets are Sexy

by Jason Unger

Money Management: Budgets are Sexy

It’s time to start week 5 of Money Management by Personal Finance Bloggers! Today, we’re speaking with J. Money, who runs Budgets are $exy.

Previous interviews: Blunt Money, Mighty Bargain Hunter, Financial Freak Show, PT Money, Moolanomy, No Debt Plan, ToughMoneyLove and Gen X Finance.

How do you spend: cash, debit or credit?
As much as I can on credit card baby! I find it an excellent budgeting tool as long as you pay it off in full every month (which I do). I spend roughly the same every month, so I might as well eek those cash rewards while I’m doing it.

Do you bank online? How about use a financial aggregator (Mint, Wesabe, Yodlee, etc.)?
I bank online at USAA.com aka the best bank e-v-e-r. Since most of my 10+ accounts are there, I find a trusty excel spreadsheet & google doc is the only other thing I need to manage it all and stay on budget.

What recurring bills do you have set on autopay?
Oddly enough, only a few things: Comcast, condo fee, and insurance. My income gets staggered so I like to manually pay the rest to make sure all is on point.

How are your finances automated?
Currently, they’re not as automated as I’d like. I deposit my paychecks, xfer out the money to the right accounts, and then manually pay a chunk of the bills asap to make sure I don’t forget.

Do you write checks? If so, how often?
Checks? What are those? 🙂 They only get the pleasure of my bad handwriting when it’s time to give a wedding present to somebody. All other times they stay in my drawer sobbing, knowing the end is near.

Where do you stash your short-term savings?
In a regular ol’ savings account. I like the freedom to xfer out at a moment’s notice, and having your accounts in one spot makes it even easier to manage it all.

Want to find out more about J. Money? Check him out at http://www.budgetsaresexy.com, follow him on Twitter @budgetsaresexy and subscribe to his RSS feed.

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Lulu October 15, 2009 at 12:26 pm

Great interview!!! J how come you don’t use ING to pay your bills? Set up the automatic payment for ING to send a check to those bills that you have been paying manually….and it does it every month. That way you don’t forget and it gets done.

J. Money October 22, 2009 at 11:30 am

Yo! Just seeing this now – I like reading about everyone 🙂

@Lulu – I have an ING account but I’m currently just using it to store away some side savings until I figure out what to do with it (I opened it up to see what all the fuss was about – but I’m glad I did!). I use USAA for everything I have, and the bills I don’t have on autopilot are so I can manually pay attention & make sure they’re a-okay. Because of the way our current situation is, I can’t set everything up automatically yet, but one day!

Lulu February 10, 2010 at 1:13 pm

@ J Money…okay mister, I will let you have a little leeway now, but there is no ‘ I can’t’ in budget!!!!!!
So I expect to see some changes in the next FOUR months.

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