Home Management Binder: Finances

Update: this post now contains links to download the printables shown here.  To see all my free printables available for download go here.

Welcome back to the Home Management Binder Series!  I am sharing my process of creating a home management binder, and hope to pass along some inspiration to others for managing their household.  For those of you just joining us, here is a quick rundown of the schedule for this series.

8/24 - Introduction
8/31 - Schedules

9/7 - Family

9/14 - Pets

9/21 - School

9/28 - Cleaning postponed

10/5 - Home

10/12 - Finances

10/19 - Food and Grocery

10/26 - Health and Fitness

11/2 - Beauty

11/9 - Crafts and Projects

11/16 - Vehicle

Feel free to follow along (or jump in and out depending on your needs) and make your own Home Management Binder as I whip mine into shape!  Many of the organizational tools and tips you''l see here can be used in other types of home management systems as well, if binders aren't your thing.

This week I'm showing you how I keep all my financial information organized and in one place.  This includes my personal finance tracking, as well as bill payment records and information.

At the moment, my parents are generous enough to support me until I graduate college, so I have no real need for a full blown budget or spending tracking system.  However, I want to have some financial systems in place for when I do graduate and begin my career, so that planning and tracking are already second nature to me.

Some pages contain sensitive personal information, so I have  chosen to photograph certain documents blank so as to protect myself and those I love. 

This section is broken down into two sub-categories; personal and bills.  They do exactly what they sound like.  My personal section helps me to keep track of and plan my own personal spending, while the bills section keeps me up to date with my bills.  While my parents do pay my bills, I am responsible for physically sending in the checks or paying them online, so it is important that I don't miss a due date.

My personal finances section begins with a page for all my bank account information.  There's room for information about five separate bank accounts.  Each section has a spot for the account type, account number, routing number, the bank name, bank's website, website login and customer service number.

Download here

I thought it would be useful to have all this information together in one place, instead of having to route through old statements or searching online to get the information I needed.

After my bank account information page, I have a similar page for all my credit/debit cards information.  Again I have room for information about five different cards.  There's are spots for the card type, card number, security code, expiration date, bank name, bank's website, website login and customer service number.

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This page will be most useful when shopping, or more likely paying bills, online.  This way I don't have to go to my purse and dig out the actual card every time I need it's information.

The last page in my personal section is a finance record.  It's a pretty simple page, with four columns for the date, description of the purchase, amount in and amount out.

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I rarely ever use cash, so I'm planning to use this page solely for my checking account expenses.  This way I can always know how much money I have available, and where all my money is going.  I may in the future add a monthly review page, so I can total all my expenses for each month into categories such as food, gas, etc. to really give myself an idea of where my money goes.  That way I'll be better prepared for making budgeting and spending decisions for the future.

My next section holds all information I need related to my bills.  That includes things such as rent, gas & electric, internet & cable, etc.  The first page I have is similar to the bank account and card information pages, but it holds all my bills accounts information.  I have spots for the company's name, the service, the account number, the company's phone number, website and my website login.

Download here

Again I wanted all this information about my various accounts together and in one place for easy reference.

My final page is a bills and payments record.  This page helps me to record and track what bills are due when.  The page is made for an entire year, so I can easily see at a glance what I've paid and what is due soon.

Download here

Each bill I have is listed on the lines to the left of the page.  Then when I get a bill in the mail, I write in the amount due and the due date under the appropriate month.  Once I pay that bill, I put a check mark in that month's square.  This helps me to see what I've already paid, and what I still need to pay and when.

At the end of the bills section, I also included an empty page protector.  When a bill comes in the mail, I slide it in here until it gets paid, then the bill gets filed away.  This helps me avoid losing the bill wherever I set it down when I open it.

And that competes my finances section of my home management binder!  Now its your turn.  How do you keep track of all your household's expenses?  Do you keep everything together in a binder like I do?  Does anyone else love seeing where their money goes, so you can more accurately plan for the future?

Come back next week so you can see my Food & Grocery section of my binder.  Melissa's the master cook around here, but I try to help out by keeping everything food related organized, from our favorite recipes to our weekly meal plans.