How do you budget??

S

scrapperjade

New member
Blah - I have spent the last 2 days up to my eyeballs in paperwork, spreadsheets, bills, etc. DH and I are finally working out our *intense* budget. I'm sick of "stuff" going on credit cards, only making minimum payments, wasting our money. I want to be able to stay home with A, but if we don't get our spending under control, work might be my only option.

We are following the "Till Debt Do Us Part" budget. Basically, you are NOT allowed to use credit or debit cards (our huge downfall - whats cash again??). Then you figure out how much your fixed expenses are and factor them in against your net income. Then you take at LEAST 10% of your income towards debt repayment. The rest of the money makes up your Variable Expenses (Food/Personal Care, Entertainment, Transportation (gas money - not car payments!), Clothing/Gifts, and Other (medical, allowances, banking fees, pets).

Each variable expense gets a jar, which gets a weekly amount of cash. This is ALL we are allowed to spend per week. Once its gone, its gone - you don't get more.

So I've spent 2 days figuring it all out, budgeting, cutting things back, and we've worked out our budget. And it scares me. When its all down on paper, we can SEE that we've been throwing away our money. And even though my jar money is very, very small, I'm actually excited to try it, and see if we can make it work!!

Here's my jar allotments per week:

Food/Personal Care: $57.69
Transportation: $18.46
Entertainment: $11.54
Clothing/Gifts: $5.77
Other: $43.85

If you want to know more about it click here, or you can watch some web episodes HERE! Its a really good debt repayment program - strict yes, but it works!

What about everyone else? Do you have a budget? Do you find it easy to follow?
 
I really should budget. But I don't. I'm awful at finances. Soon enough we'll have a joint account, and then I'll really have to budget because Jordan will get mad at the $$ I "throw away", lol. I mean, we don't eat out often and we don't go out to eat for lunch very often, so I dont' have the expense to worry about. I just have zero willpower and will shop for all kinds of random things, all the time. And I really need to stop that. Lol!
 
We loosely follow Dave Ramsey's plan, and it works. I keep a spreadsheet with EVERYTHING on it, and it helps keeps us in check.

Even though we weren't living paycheck to paycheck before budgeting, it's AMAZING to see how much money we have now that we really watch our spending and think about purchases before making them... everything, that is, except digi scrap kits. :p
 
We did the Dave Ramsey financial peace seminar a couple years back...Totally worth it!

Good luck Jade :)
 
Another Dave Ramsey fan. We paid off all our cc debt with the debt snowball, pay cash only (apart from gas & a set amount for online purchases) & were able to make a nice amount for a downpayment on the car we unexpectedly had to get in April. We're working on saving up 3 months salary now.

going cash only has been a huge help. Our check card will pull from savings if we overdraft & we were doing that fairly often on the theory we'd just transfer it back when DH got paid. We rarely transfered anything back. It hasn't been a fun adjustment, but we're doing pretty good after 8 months.
 
We use a program called Moneydance. We download our bank statements every other day and then we put the expenses in the alloted spots. Here's some of our allotments:

Mortgage
Utilities (includes electric, phone, propane, water, trash)
Groceries
Entertainment (includes all entertainment costs from renting movies etc)
Transportation (includes the car payment, insurance and gas)
Medical/Dental
Clothing (includes clothes, shoes etc)
Credit Cards (although since we downsized to one, we may change this)
Animals (includes vet trips, food and litter)
Kids (includes school expenses, lunch money etc)
 
that's fab Stacey...we pay "cash" meaning I use the debit card but it still comes from our checking acct...I find we spend less that way. If I have a 20, i'm gonna find a way to spend the whole $20..where as I might only spend 7-10 with debit lol
 
Good on ya!! I am doing the same thing but then with a Dutch program. Not that we really need it, but I was blown away with where all our money went and I didn't have a clue. I was so sick and tired of it and wanted more control.

It really helps! Good luck and be proud of yourself!!
 
I have a notebook. Every paycheck starts a new page, we get 1st and 15th paychecks so the month is essentially broken into halves. The bills are divided pretty equally, half for the first and half for the middle of the month.
I record the paycheck amount and the amount carried over from the previous month when the paycheck hit the account. Then add up the total for bills to be paid for that portion of the month. With the new total I subtract typical expenses such as food, gas, dining out... things that I roughly know how much we usually spend. I like to estimate a little higher than it may actually cost, better to have extra than not enough. I include anything extra for that month also, like making notes to myself. This is a birthday month so I jotted that down to account for buying gifts, etc. After all those extra expenses are subtracted, we know how much funny money we have to last us until the next payday.
oh, and i love CCs. :p could never give'em up
 
MamaK said:
oh, and i love CCs. :p could never give'em up
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I like having a cc for sure. I'm one that RARELY uses it. DH on the other hand uses it a little more freely. When we get them paid off, we are going down to ONE, and I plan on using it more like a debit card. Like when the balance is zero, slap an extra $500 on it. That way we can use it to wrack up points, but we don't have debt. That OR make sure that if we use it that day, that evening we transfer a payment over to pay it off.

I really like the one card we have. It's through the grocery store we use most, and each purchase (anywhere, not just at the store) adds points to the card. Every dollar you spend gives you 10 points. It only takes 20,000 points to redeem for $20 free groceries. We've redeemed once since getting it and are 3/4 way to redeeming again.
 
the most important thing I think for a budget is to realize that if you do not have cash to pay for something and it is not necasary for your survival you do not need it. That is how I budgeted (when my husband was working that is...hes been out of work so it is hard now) but we have paid off our house, we own our car with no payments and are free of any credit card debt right now
 
jessica31876 said:
the most important thing I think for a budget is to realize that if you do not have cash to pay for something and it is not necasary for your survival you do not need it. That is how I budgeted (when my husband was working that is...hes been out of work so it is hard now) but we have paid off our house, we own our car with no payments and are free of any credit card debt right now
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I agree with the "if its not life and death, don't buy it". We have a really hard time differentiating between our NEEDS and our WANTS. We also struggle with the "its only $2, $3, $5, its not that expensive". Maybe $2 isn't expensive, but when its added up with the other 400 $2 items, YEAH IT IS, lol.

So designers - you are all forbidden to release anything new to tempt me with! Agreed? No? Okay... no more Sneak Peek threads. What? No to that too??? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME????
 
another Dave Ramsey fan :) Took his class for several months and it really helped us! I just need to get serious about it again. I have his audio CDs and need to listen to those again. Those are worth the expense for sure! Check out his site to see where his classes are. Those are really worth the time and you get the CDs in the class expense.
 
Soon after we got married, we decided to get out of debt before we had kids. We followed Dave Ramsey's program and paid off all our debt in just under 2 years. Since then we have no credit cards..well we have an Amer. Express but it has a zero balance. Our only fixed debt is our mortgage and DH's truck note. My SUV is paid for and will be driven until the wheels fall off lol. So since we're debt free and are able to put a hefty chunk into savings each month, our allowances each month are fairly flexible now.

But yes..Dave Ramsey knows what he's talking about. :)
 
yea I know I struggled with that too...my husband always wanted to stop and just grab a burger or a milkshake as a snack. It really adds up though. I would allow myself like 20 dollars a month to spend on scrapbooking. I tried to get my husband to stick to a budget but it often went over with him. Now we dont have much cash coming in so he has no choice at all whether he does or not. He realizes now though had we really stuck to that rule and not spent those little 2, 3 ,4 dollar purchases etc we would have been alot better off when he went out of work
scrapperjade said:
I agree with the "if its not life and death, don't buy it". We have a really hard time differentiating between our NEEDS and our WANTS. We also struggle with the "its only $2, $3, $5, its not that expensive". Maybe $2 isn't expensive, but when its added up with the other 400 $2 items, YEAH IT IS, lol.

So designers - you are all forbidden to release anything new to tempt me with! Agreed? No? Okay... no more Sneak Peek threads. What? No to that too??? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME????
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We suck at budgeting, but we're being forced to start getting serious. I can't pull out cash because I'm far more cautious with my debit card. lol
 
I don't have a written budget, persay, but we're on the level payment plan with utilities, meaning our bills are the same every month instead of the electric bill being super high in summer and low in winter and vice versa for the gas bill. So, I know precisely what is due every month and when, and it's all written on our wall calendar, so each check, at least one bill, usually 2, get paid. Jeff knows how much of his income is "disposable" and so do I. Daycare comes out of my check and his work expenses come out of his. It works for us. Except in the winter. And then things don't work too well and I get stressed out. Summers are great. :D :D :D Stupid weather.
 
kscwgirl said:
I don't have a written budget, persay, but we're on the level payment plan with utilities, meaning our bills are the same every month instead of the electric bill being super high in summer and low in winter and vice versa for the gas bill. So, I know precisely what is due every month and when, and it's all written on our wall calendar, so each check, at least one bill, usually 2, get paid. Jeff knows how much of his income is "disposable" and so do I. Daycare comes out of my check and his work expenses come out of his. It works for us. Except in the winter. And then things don't work too well and I get stressed out. Summers are great. :D :D :D Stupid weather.
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We do that too with our utilities! I LOVE it! It's especially helpful in the winter when its brutally cold... our heat bill never goes up! We have as many items on automatic withdrawal as we can as well. It helps - I can't forget a bill if it comes out by itself, lol!!
 
We have a very loose budget. But it took us 10 years to get to a place where we are able to have wiggle room in our budget and put money in savings. It is hard when you are starting out. I can remember having to try to live off of $400 a month when we were in college.

It is hard when you look at it on paper but like anything else it just takes a couple weeks to get use to a change. My biggest suggestion is to always put something in savings. Even if it is $5 every two weeks those $5 might come in handy when need to buy cough syrup and have no money in your checking account. And don't link your savings to your checking. I mean you can have a savings linked to your checking for overdraft protection but have a whole other savings at a whole other bank. If you have to go out of your way to get the moeny it is less tempting.
 
Ohhh also if you have it available at your bank do the round up thing on your checking. I saved 2200 dollars one year just from doing the round up savings. Basically what that is is everytime you use your debit/check card and lets say you spend in a day you spend 5.46, 2.28 and 10.72 at the end of that day you would have 1.54 transferred to your savings from your checking. If you round it automatically in your register you will never forget about it. If you use your debit card alot then the savings really start to add up. My husband used his everyday for lunch and for gas and we used it to pay bills and buy groceries etc. Also the banks match a certain amount of whatever you save on top of the interest you would receive for your savings already. The first year I received almost 300 dollars from the bank just for signing up and Ive received about 50 a year after that. It is defenitely worth it to do it
 
I could NEVER go cash only, lol. Well, I could...DH couldn't. He's the kind of guy that rounds down (I have never figured this out, lol...it's $13.99 and he says it's $13 not $14), and if he pays for something with a $20 and they give him 4.99 in change, he doesn't count that change as money. It's so weird. He'll say we have no money but empty out his pockets and there's at least $30 in change! It makes me crazy, lol.

But, up here everything smaller than a $5 bill is coin, so it's easy to make it add up. Still, it's crazy! When we were in the US, we'd get wierded out by the $1 bills, lol...thinking we had more money than we actually had.
 
The cash versus card thing is really a personal choice. My parents charge absolutely everything and then pay the bill off in full every month. Dh & I are just not capable of that. We've tried, we overspent every time. We did well with check cards when we had 2 incomes, but once I stayed home we realized we are not good at taking the other's expenses into account. If we both knew there was $100 in the account, I would spend $80 & not mention it and he would spend $70. For all that I am a data geek, I cannot keep track well of 'imaginary money' which is what I now realize credit is to me.

We still have our cards. No budget plan in the world can convince us to deal with the hassle of paying cash for gas. :) and we are rural enough that some things just have to be bought over the internet. What is important is that you find a way to track your spending that works for you. It took us 5 years and 3 previous attempts at different systems before we found something that works longer than 3 months.
 
Another Dave Ramsey fan here. We went through Financial Peace University through the military about a month after we were married and I really think it was one of the best things we've done. It really got us on the same page right from the start and really helped us to set up a game plan.

As far as budgeting, we use debit cards mostly and keep track up everything with an Excel spreadsheet my DH put together. It does take some time to input everything but I find that it helps a lot to really know where everything is being spent. I actually love being able to know I've saved up for something because I don't end up feeling guilty about spending the money, which I usually did before.

Honestly, the best Dave Ramsey advice is this: "Don't take money advice from broke people." So true. :D
 
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