Back to Spreadsheets... Why I think they are wrong in our circumstance.
A spreadsheet is a very good tool for doing financial models, but they are only as good as the quality of data entered and entering data as situations and circumstances change.
Our financial crisis is very fluid, creditors wanting payment, late payment fees, exorbitant interest rates that appear to be arbitrarily added. Excess charge fees.
The best way to describe this mess is like walking through an old minefield, at any time some ancient debt bomb might explode. A static once a month budget spreadsheet is no good in our circumstance.
As for the personal money thing, easier said than done. Historically (and this is part of how we got into this mess), DW would use her personal money, take money from the joint account as well as asking me to "lend" her something cos she was short. Then she discovered payday loans. Sadly this all came to light when she stopped being able to manage the mental juggling act.
I was very very temped to walk away from the problem, but for better or worse (we had the traditional marriage vows). A long discussion of how she was feeling because of the debt stress and not knowing what to do, I elected to take it on board and resolve the problems.
Between then and now DW has really got into a habit forming/habit changing mindset - she is one of those people who finds self discipline challenging.
Going back to the quality of data, It has been quite hard unravelling the mess, the disclosure stage was tough. Who's owed what where and when. We're now in the honesty and transparency stage. Sometimes, like yesterday a little red flag pops up - Like yesterday, I think "Oh No not again". But as I was hoping yesterday has become a milestone event for us.
Another point I'd like to make about spreadsheets, is that people trust in them too much... one bit of finger trouble, a number transposition or leaving something off - and it becomes totally worthless segment of data on a hard drive. Secondly, DW is not a numbers person, leaving a spreadsheet open, printing it off, sharing it on google drive - would be fine, If 1. she'd take time to look at it. 2. take time to digest it and finally 3. Took the time to comprehend it. I don't know why but it is a real mental block for her.
I'd like to also point out that, historically (back in the days of only pen and paper) a business would have a daily ledger and do month end using Cathedral Analysis book. Using a speadsheet once a month, is only doing a month end. Our budget has to be a living thing, taking into account circumstances as they change. Which is why I use a financial diary and for 30 mins every morning before everyone is up, do a reconciliation against yesterdays entries and check cash in hand and cash at bank.
You see I'm no financial genius - I have to add up my number columns three times, reason being, I'm quite bad at doing number transposition myself. I've learned not to trust my own fingers with a calculator. Its a habit I've formed by making a mistake and transposing a tens and the hundreds and getting into a real pickle.
It is quite hard work balancing a budget, and doing the subsequent analysis... why was that particular Tesco's shop more than previous, Oh yeh! we went down the sundry items isle I got a couple of mags you got a couple of book, the DC's got a couple of magazines and a moshi monsters pack. Those quick drop into the trolly items that get easily forgotten.
As another example, its evident that DD1 has had a growth spurt, the tights that we bought for school in January, no longer fit along with other clothes. Bummer, that now means another adjustment for this weekend, for leggings, tights, etc.
From a technical perspective the maths engine in Excel is pretty low grade. I've work in Financial Services for a long time writing software and I know how poor the majority of mainstream programming languages maths processing subsystems are. There is a major difference between Java, CPP .net and excel when it comes to working with numbers.
There are differences in each one rounding algorithms, to start with. Other than using a very specialist maths language such as R, the adjust mistakes made by banks and insurance/assurance companies are legion.
I once worked on an actuarial modelling system that fed values to a policy payment system. The actuaries used a visual basic application, that then generated an excel spreadsheet, which was uploaded into a java based policy system, which then spat out an xml file that was hoovered up by a database using c# which then fed into a payment system using asp.net & c#.
Once in place the business trusted the system, until a year end audit showed they had massively underpaid, the board went nuts and I was tasked with tracking down the bug. Sadly, each subsystem had a bug which compounded the next in the chain.
So for me pen, paper and a TI calculator are the best things for me to get us to a stable position, then to ensure some form of money safety net.