My money/expense "tracking" ie balancing my "checkbook" I do (pretty much daily) is giving me a headache! What's changed? DH has been selling stuff on Ebay......and it all flows through PayPal......well, so does just about everything I pay for using my Paypal debit card. My typical morning routine is to log into Paypal and verify the charges that have gone through with my debit card. Then I log into my bank account and just check to make sure nothing looks suspicious there - pretty much all I see is all the paypal charges that have completed and transferred to my checking account. Easy Peasy.
But now when I log in there is money coming in from the sales, money going out for the shipping, all co-mingled with my daily use of my debit card. And when there is money in paypal from the auctions, my debit card purchases will just go against any money in paypal rather than coming out of my checking account. Which is making my checking account look like I have more money than I do. And none of this ebay money is ours anyway. It's DH selling some more of the stuff from his deceased best friend and the money goes to his wife. And guess who has to keep track of it all? Me, of course. I finally just made a spreadsheet where I can download the sold items descriptions, then I make columns for the shippping fees, paypal fees and ebay fees. I don't like it all mixed up and mingled together. It's time consuming to figure out all the fees, too. So far though, DH has made our friend $800 for stuff that is just sitting out in her shop. (too bad DH has barely made a dent in all the stuff! He's going to be working on this project for years - in fact he's already been at it for 3 years. His friend was pretty much a hoarder of car parts)
Now I see he has like over 40 auctions going on right now. Ugh. Plus, I'm the one (or DD) who ends up having to take all these packages to the post office to be dropped off. At least he prepays/labels the shipping at home, so I just have to drop off at the post office desk and not stand in line. Oh well, at least it's giving him something to keep busy with and not too strenuous.
Umm... how about a new/separate Paypal account? What I've done to stop my dad's money from mingling from my paypal money (I keep some spare change there for games) is that any money of his gets automatically transferred to his savings account in my bank. Then before the ebay bill is due, I transfer it from my bank and pay the bill. Works pretty well.
ReplyDeletegood idea. I think I'll do that!
DeleteSome times, it's just so tough but it's great to see you working together, you will get there x
ReplyDeleteHi there. First time at your blog, but I treat paypal as I separate account and I have a small checking account attached. I have a paypal debit card so I never transfer money FROM paypal to my bank account, although on rare occasions I do need to add money to it. make the small checking account his allowance. Also, come tax time, there will be no co-mingled funds if he makes any money. Paypal can be downloaded to quicken or other software programs. I don't do ebay, but I do have a fiverr account and work on elance, and both places I get paid through paypal.
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