How to start and continue a budget

[becpee]

x

 

[njcarita]

whatever u do make it simple...
I've tried everything thru the years... spread sheets.... ledger books.... envelope system u name it.... find what works for u and your lifestylw

Last year I decided to write up a yearly budget divide total by 12.... and beginning of every month at top of paper write month and monthly budget amount figured...
I kept it by my computer and every time I wrote a bill ....etc I deducted from total...

following month I got fresh sheet of paper out... and carried over what was left from prevoius month ...

I would add up totals quarterly and a few days before the end of year I added up my yearly expenses.... what an eye opener... really gives me what I have spent... not what I thought I spent thru the year...

eye opener for me was i thought we were spending too much maintaining our older cars and was ready to run out and get a new car..
well I added everything up for year... and total for our 2 cars ( including auto insurance, repairs, maintance, AAA,inspection and registrations ) was under $3000...less than $250/month for 2 cars..... so we decided to hold off buying new and keep saving for the new car when we need it

 

[hanutedmansionmomma]

all accounts through same bank, so can see balances anytime. One excel spreadsheet with budgeted amounts and actuals for things like groceries - things that change (car insurance is always the same, for example, don't fiddle w/ that). It's not too fancy, and once it's set up, it's easy to change balances, etc. Nice to see debt go down.

I just check my balance a lot, and watch how much I've spent. I know if I go under in a category I can throw that at debt.

No allowances - I have line items for clothes, hair, gifts. If we eat out, I consider that grocery.

Interested in hearing form the envelope people. I wondered if that would work for me for grocery. I'd love to cut that back.

 

[rnorwo1]

I tried the envelope system and it was great for cutting out impulse purchases. If you're in walmart and you only have $100 cash in your hands, it's much easier to resist grabbing that new $20 dvd for the kids, knowing and seeing right then and there how little money that will leave you for the week.

But.... all in all it did not work out for me because I would either forget my envelope at home or I'd need to stop at the store last minute and hadn't planned for it (I've joined the no-buy this month for the first time to try to cut that out!) I also tried just carrying them around with me all the time but I tended to switch money around too much and feel a little too "rich" with that cash with me all the time! And then we switched to a credit union checking account that earned 5% interest, but we had to use 15 debit transactions a month to not have any fees, so now I'm just using a spreadsheet. But it takes alot more discipline when in the store with a debit card than with cash, so if you can be organized enough to manage the envelopes, then that may definitely be the way to go. I even found a grocery envelope in my car's glove compartment like a year after we stopped using them, with a full week's allowance!!

 

[mommyof3princess27]

I just started the envelope system and it worked or us! I also go over the budget every week and readjust as nec.

 

[tinkermom23]

We need to keep it simple. I set up all of our monthly bills on bill pay through the bank. They do not charge us a fee but if (for example) I set up auto pay with our mortgage company, they charge $8.95 each time they get a payment! So, I figured out all our bills, divided by 2 and we deposit that amount in the bank every 2 weeks. Then a certain amount goes into our savings acct. and the rest in cash.
With the cash, we each get our "blow" money and $ out for church. Then we use a type of envelope system but I only have 3. One for gas/car, one is for entertainment (eating out, movies, fun...) and one for shopping (groceries, paper products, toiletries,clothing, gifts) I put this together because I do most of my shopping at Target or the Grocery store and it's just easy for me to use one envelope for this. When an unexpected bill comes up we take it out of the savings.
When we have a 3rd paycheck for the month we do the same thing and it helped to build a cushion in our checking.
We took the Dave Ramsey class and encourage everyone to check him out.

 

[lisaross]

i would get out a piece of paper and wrtie down pretty much all ur bills.

I then break it into 4 weeks as my husband gets paid weekly.

here is an example - way u take home 1000.00 a month:

week 1

our wkend money for the month - 400.00
my allowance - 200
hubby's allownacy 200
car insurance - 200

Week 2

1/2 mortgage - 600.00
electric - 100
gas - 100
savings 100
gas 100

and i would give yourself a few months to get it write..

each paycheck i take out the written budget and work it that way.

good luck

I'm getting some great ideas reading the budget board, my DH and I are really trying to knuckle down and get a budget going but i'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.

*Do you withdraw cash from your account when you get paid and put it in jars or envelopes?
*Do you have separate accounts for everything?
*Do you reconcile every week?
*Do you have your own allowance and how much is too much (or too little?)

Keep in mind that my DH and I have been very frivolous in the past and would rather start with a softly softly approach rather than being hit by a train right from the start, where did you start? (and where should I start?)

Other tips greatly appreciated

TIA

 

[mrodgers]

My wife and I get paid on opposite weeks, so we have a paycheck coming in every week.

*Do you withdraw cash from your account when you get paid and put it in jars or envelopes?

No. I don't do it with cash. The only cash I would have to spend right now would be groceries and gas and I get those on payday and it's the only money available in the account after paying bills.

I created a spreadsheet that lists every week's expected pay for the year. Down the right hand side I have a list of our bills and which day they are due. For each pay week column, I went through and highlighted the pay week cell that each bill would need to be paid.

*Do you have separate accounts for everything?

For accounts, I have 1 checking account at the bank where I put remaining pay money into after the following below. I use this for bills, groceries, and debt payments.

I have a credit union that has a checking account and savings account. Savings account holds an emergency fund. The checking account has a set direct deposit for what Dave Ramsey calls sinking funds. These are funds saved up to pay whatever, which is currently my car insurance quarterly, heating oil through the winter, and local taxes that don't come out of our paychecks.

We currently have debt, so we aren't saving up more than that. Whatever is left in the bank checking after paying the bills, groceries, and gas is going to debt repayment. After final debt repayment I will start more sinking funds in the credit union checking for things like Christmas, clothing, car repair, house repair, car purchase etc.

I track these in the excel spreadsheet that has my budget. I may be putting $100/pay or whatever into the single account for sinking funds, but that amount is divided up on the spreadsheet for each individual fund to track it.

*Do you reconcile every week?

The spreadsheet, yes, pretty much. I look at it every week because we get paid every week and the paycheck is not a set amount. My wife works part time and I get overtime here and there, so I budget my 80 hour pay and budget a light paycheck for my wife since hers is more variable than mine.

*Do you have your own allowance and how much is too much (or too little?)

I'm going through Dave Ramsey's stuff and this is the first time I've been able to figure out to have an "allowance." It certainly isn't $800 like a previous posters, but I'll be taking $30 out of the ATM every Friday starting in February (January is the start of my budgeting and I'll be kick starting the "sinking funds.") That will give my wife and I $10/week and give the kids a $5 allowance.

 

[richmond282]

We do use the envelope system and have figured out how to make it work for us. Our Budget looks like this (I just put in random numbers to give you an idea):

Paid through credit union's bill pay evey month:

Cell phone $150
Car Insurance $100 (we pay this monthly. There's an additional fee, but it's what works for us.)
DD's saving's account $100
Gas credit card $400 (We pay this off every month because we prefer not to carry cash around for gas purchases)
Electric/ internet bill $200 (provided by the same company or would be 2 different bills)
Mortgage $1500
Debt reduction $500
Water/ trash $50
Car payment $300

Write checks for:

Tithe to church $500
Piano lessons $75
Lunch money for DD $30

Cash Envelopes:

Entertainment $50
Eating out $100
Spending $150 (this is $50 for me, $75 for DH which includes hair cut $ too, $25 for DD's allowance)
Medical/ Dental $50
Car Maintenance/ Repair $100 (this amount will accumulate if it's not used every month. That way if we have a major repair bill, we still have $ for it. Same thing w/ medical $)
Groceries $400 (this includes toiletries and such too)

I keep the grocery envelope and the eating out envelope with me and leave the rest at home. When the envelope is empty, there is no more spending until the next pay day. I often have $ left in envelopes at the end of the month which allows me to alter the next month's pay outs. HTH!

 

[Wilsonfamily4]

We have one check a month. The entire check is deposited. We know how much our mandatory bills are and those ALL come out automatically (except for two checks) so that money stays in the bank. Then we figure out how much we need for:

Groceries
Eating out/Entertainment
Misc---presents, paint for walls, sports for kids, things that come up randomly
His money
Her money
Gas
We pull that money from the bank and put it into envelopes. The money after we subtract bills and envelopes goes into savings (Actually right now it is going to an investment). If a envelope runs low we just can't buy more of that thing. If we have leftover I just leave it in the envelope or add it to savings. I really do like this system. We have tried a few things over the years and this helps as we can both see how much is left without guessing what may be outstanding that the other person bought. It also allows us each freedom with our own "allowance" to spend or save for whatever we want. I usually save and buy fun things for myself whereas my hubbys money goes to Starbucks. But I am okay with that as it is His money. lol

Good Luck on finding your system. But everyone really should have some sort of budget so they can see where their money goes.

O, wanted to add I do not carry my envelopes with me. If going to the store I will take money from appropriate envelope. If for some reason I am out and buy something on my debit card I go home and take the money out of that envelope and clip it to the fridge. Every week or so I will go deposit that money back to our account. I also do this if I buy something online. Just take moeny from envelope and stick on fridge.

 

[lattemomof3]

I use the envelope system, I carry a little plastic accordian file from Walmart & labled the different sections with groceries & household, toiletries & cosmetics, eating out, clothes, fun $ (to us this means toys, books, magazines-mostly for the kids), entertainment, gifts and holidays & weekend travel (we travel quite a bit to visit our families 4 hours away). I put two weeks worth of cash in at a time, so I'm not carrying it all with me. I also have a notebook where I keep track of daily spending- I just jot down what I bought at the end of every day. In this notebook we keep our financial goals for the year, then have a page for each month, where I've written the above categories, and beside them written what I think we'll need to budget for the month, at the end of the month beside that I record what we actually spent. On the back side of the (8 1/2 x 11) notebook page is where I record the daily spending, I just # the lines from 1 to 31 and record there. I know many people love the computer spreadsheets, and I know how to do them, but I'm just a pen and paper girl at heart. This way everything is in one place, and this system has been working really, really well for us. I should add that these are just the variable expenses, the things I buy that I try to cut down on & budget for. Dh keeps track of all of the bills on excel, he is the spreadsheet guy! Good luck!

 

[diznee25]

OP:

I'm like you, starting off small taking baby steps so we can stay the course. We've never really been good with saving money, or keeping track of what's in our checking account. There were a few times last year when our checking account went below zero. So I'm creating new habits so that won't happen this year!

Our biggest goal this year to pay down credit card debit, and build an emergency fund, but can't really do that until we get really organized with our finances. So here's what I've been doing so far:

1. I use Quicken software to download every transaction from our checking account. In Quicken I've divided up our transactions in different categories; rent, cars, cable, utilities, groceries, insurance, entertainment, dinning out etc. This showed us where we potentially have a little extra money per month. (This extra money is then divided in half; half to pay down credit cards, and half to put into savings.)

2. I then set up a monthly automatic transfer from checking to savings to stash away money. (If I didn't do this we'd probably blow the extra $$ on stuff, which is what we're trying not to do!)

3. To stay motivated I'm going to set monthly goals, and I'm going to set up a reward system. I actually just read this in an article on MSNBC. It said you're more likely to stay motivated and keep the course if you set quarterly goals and rewards. It can't be something that would break the bank, but I'm still having a hard time thinking up rewards. Hummm...

Anyway, this is my plan of action!


diznee25

 

[msmama]

I'm new at this too, so I'm not 100% sure if this is going to work for me yet, but it's better than any of the other systems I've looked at.

For some reason, for me, even though I do all my banking on line, I need to actually have things written down. Like, write it with my hand, pen and ink, for it to sink in for me.

I have my budget for Jan. $X dollars, and then I've put every one of those dollars into a category (all the bills, groceries, gas, clothes, entertainment, etc).

Part of the reason the writing down thing works for me is that I put EVERYTHING on my Disney Visa credit card and then pay it in full each month. So, for me, the writing down thing works like the envelope system would work for someone else (because I know I only have $X for groceries for the month).