Monthly/weekly budget?

perfectlove09

OK...I'm still on this kick of trying to get things organized around here...it's only been...like 15 years. Well...maybe that's an exaggeration but still. I need to get my butt in gear. And change is HARD people!

I'm still working on a weekly meal plan...but I'm closer now than I was before. I actually started putting recipes in a calendar on my computer last night and then making a spread sheet with the directions and ingredients. It's very overwhelming for me, about every 15 mins I'd get a little mini panic attack and think "I CAN'T DO THIS!"...but I am.

Anyway, on to my question. Who here budgets,...and sticks to it? Any tips, tricks, or ideas? Care to share what that looks like? Do you use cash mostly or just debit cards? I just tried pulling cash out this week for DH and I to use. We weren't going to use our debit cards for anything other than gas. Cash came from same account as debit but the point I was trying to drive home for us was that we don't pay attention to how much we spend when we just hand a cashier a piece of plastic. 2 days in my husband says "I MUST have dropped a $20 somewhere...there's no way in hell I've spent this much"...yep...I told him that was my point exactly. We always say "But I didn't buy ANYthing!" yet we never have money...and most recently we paid some pretty hefty fines in overdraft fees that if I ever see again I'm going to shoot someone. 

So...you don't have to put $$ amounts if you aren't comfortable, % maybe? Is there a % of your check that you use for other things? Do you and your SO split the bills, do you make more? Do you SAH and the SO brings in the cash...I'm sure you still have a system! I wanna hear it...I could have paid 5 of you $34.00 a piece to answer this after the fees we just paid but this one will have to be pro-bono...

minervacullen

We have an excel spread sheet tat we put every single dollar, except me extra hair money, spent on. It really helps to see where the money is going, then you budget accordingly.

Our highest expense is groceries. I hoard food, like canned goods and frozen items, because when I was little and my mom was a single mom we had some serious lack if food. It's sort if stuck with me. I've tried to use up my stock, but I get worried that something will happen and we will run out.

Um.. My phone hates me, it autocorrects the weirdest things. Sorry!

minervacullen

Oh
I stay home, I use the stores online coupon thing, it's called mperks. I also do ibotta and cartwheel for target.

DH and DS bring a lunch and snack to work and school every day. I don't buy soft drinks, a lot of prepared food, or meats. We use venison that FIL or BIL harvested or dark meat chicken. Some times I buy pork chops and Jennie-O turkey items.

JessAnnJ

DH puts everything into a spreadsheet. I think he uses quicken. We put everything we possibly can on our Amex for the miles so we don't use cash. I actually can't imagine using only cash. We pay off the balance each month. I earn about 40% more than DH but we have a joint checking account so that doesn't matter in term of paying bills. My view on checking accounts is if you can't trust someone with your money you probably shouldn't be married to them, but there are many people that strongly disagree with that. We don't really have a budget, but if I were to create one I would make a list of all of our fixed expenses first and see how much is left. I would then factor in other things like retirement savings, personal savings, college savings etc and see how much is left. Then I would look at groceries, clothing, toiletries, and fun and try to come up with a realistic amount. Starting of course with groceries since that is not optional. I think too many people think of savings last but that is really important. Definitely don't skimp on the retirement savings which a lot of people tend to do. I'm in my 30's now but it's the money that you save in your 20's that counts the most because it has the most time to grow.

Addy1227

We, like you, still haven't gotten a handle on this budget thing but we're getting there.. maybe? We have 2 bank accounts, one for our car bill and insurance and the other for rent and utilities. We direct deposit slightly over the amount needed to pay our bills at the end of the month, which makes sense because it allows us to accumulate money for the winter heating bills. We get paid weekly so it's a set amount that goes in each week and adds up to just over all the bills. 

We use cash for groceries, gas for the cars and other miscellaneous spending. We are horrible at meal planning! I've tried and continue to fail so we spend more on groceries than we should. We keep track of the cash at home and if it happens to reach above a certain amount we put it in our savings account. Using cash for non bills helps us keep an eye on how much extra we actually spend. 

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kjsmith9

Like some of the others above, I use an excel spreadsheet to track our bills and other spending.  I don't keep track of every single dollar.  DH and I get paid every other Friday (on opposite Fridays, so we get paid once a week).  I make more, but we have a joint account so it doesn't matter.  Every weekend I look at our checking account balance, subtract all of our bills that are due during the next week.  I also subtract everything that we know is coming up over the next 7 days (i.e., gas, groceries, if we know the dog will need a new bag of food, etc).  I usually leave $50-100 extra as a buffer, but transfer the rest of the excess into the savings account.  I typically keep track of our expected balance for the month ahead too, because some weeks we pay a lot of bills (i.e., all of our student loans are due in the same week), and some weeks barely anything.  I don't want to transfer back from savings if I can avoid it, because we're saving money for a home down payment.  This method has pretty much forced us to be good... we've only transferred money back from savings to checking twice in the last 6 months.

As far as groceries go, our grocery store ad comes out every Wednesday - I do my best to plan meals based on what's on sale.  We budget $80 a week for DH, myself, and DD and very rarely do we go over (we're often able to keep it $70-75).  I use store coupons, and also look on coupons.com to make it work.  We never really use cash, but I calculate what's going in the grocery cart to avoid going over.  And if we go over and still have things we "need" on the list, we put back things we "want" - you just have to be good about it.  We go out to eat or do carryout only about 1x per month, and we both take bag lunches.  I always have my coffee at home rather than buying it at work.  It's those little things that add up...

minervacullen

Omg @kjsmith9‌ that's all you spend on groceries!!! I budget $180 a week, but occasionally go as high as $220. But that includes everything we could possibly need, cleaning supplies, food, animal food, garden supplies (this is new), diapers, a new broom, vitamins, health care items, a new pair of socks... I shop at Meijer and you can get it all there.

JessAnnJ

@kjsmith9‌ OMG you are an awesome grocery shopper. We often spend about $200 a week on groceries for the three of us.

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kjsmith9

That doesn't include toilet paper/paper towels, other toiletries... Just food. And we use cloth diapers so no added expense there. We almost always make dinners that last 2-3 nights, and I think that helps. And daycare feeds DD breakfast, lunch, and snack 5 days a week.

kerbear135

When we got married, we accrued some debt fairly quickly and it was stressing us both out. We finally decided to follow Dave Ramsey's baby steps and dug ourselves out of debt. Now, we use cash for anything but set bills (utilities, mortgage, cell phones, etc). DH goes to the bank on Friday and gets $160 and that covers eating out on the weekend (we eat at home during the week) groceries, etc until the next Friday...when it's gone, it's gone. DH is the finance natzi- he knows where every penny goes before it's spent and if he doesn't, it really freaks him out. We both carry our debit cards, but only for emergencies, and we both have to ok it before one of us uses it. We do have 1 credit card, but we keep it only for the rewards and pay the balance in full each month- and we never use it to buy anything we couldn't pay cash for. It's taken us years to get our system optimized and there are still times when it doesn't work or when things come up we didn't plan for, and it's about to get shuffled completely with the new mortgage and such....the key, for us, is to keep close tabs on everything and if we get on track we can catch ourselves before we get too far gone.

minervacullen

I really need to do the weekly cash thing. I think that would help a lot with random items.

perfectlove09

This all helps a lot! Thank you all. It's so hard to get things back under control. I think we need to read Ramsy's book bc it's been suggested to me before and I've looked it up just haven't bought it yet.

I do think we will keep trying a few weeks of pulling a set amount of cash out and once that's gone it's gone. I did great this week....but DH spent the money I had left over and on top of that he used that Chase card SEVERAL times...he just doesn't get it.

I did open a separate account that only I have access to and my check gets deposited in there and I pay all the bills with it. Then I transfer money into our shared account. I started doing that back in August and this past month was the first time we got any fees or had to borrow money to hold us over. Prior to that it was a freaking free for all. DH hates that he's not on the account and I understand...most the time, but he just doesn't have ANY restraint when it comes to spending money. if there is money in the account that's it...he will spend it all. So I've had to be drastic and I took over all the bills. I'm hoping that in 4 months I'll have everything where it needs to be and we can switch things up again but until then it's just how it is.