s/o Budgets

MrsAB1316

I have a pretty dumb question...

How do you put together a budget?   I mean...we have savings, we pay our bills, etc, but sometimes it feels like we're living paycheck to paycheck even though, technically we're not.   I'd like to feel more in control of our money...but it's not like we really even spend a lot. Just basics.     What are your best budget making tips?

willy_gert

LoisLayn23:

Dave Ramsey envelope system.

We have an envelope for each category of spending.

food, gas, entertainment, clothing, utilities, mortgage, Thirty-One stuff, etc.

Then we set a budget and put that amount of money into it, once that money's gone for the month, we don't spend any more on that category.

Any left over money at the end of the month in any envelopes, plus any overtime pay DH has received and my 31 $$ gets pooled and we use it for a student loan payment.

Does his system really work for you?  I went through the class when I was still in college and it just didn't seem like it really applied for me then.  I still have my stuff and I have been thinking about going back through it with DH, but I am unsure about it.

I have our budget on a spreadsheet.  Between DH and I we get paid weekly, so I go through and budget out the month.  I have a "general" overall budget that I work from, but my paycheck is smaller than his, so I move stuff around to make sure it gets paid timely.  Then I make a plan for the leftover money.  It works pretty well for us, but we are currently paycheck to paycheck, but I am hoping it will not be that way always. 

gingerfamily

I've done the envelope system and it works well.  I just don't like carrying cash around. 

We currently use www.mint.com. 

bubblewrapjk

Do you have actual envelopes with cash in them? We use mint.com but I think changing to envelopes might help us. Seems annoying though so I haven't done it yet.

MomtobeNJ

LoisLayn23:

Dave Ramsey envelope system.

We have an envelope for each category of spending.

food, gas, entertainment, clothing, utilities, mortgage, Thirty-One stuff, etc.

Then we set a budget and put that amount of money into it, once that money's gone for the month, we don't spend any more on that category.

Any left over money at the end of the month in any envelopes, plus any overtime pay DH has received and my 31 $$ gets pooled and we use it for a student loan payment.

Lois - I have the dumbest question EVER. I have heard this method recommended by many people and I think I would do well with it. My question is, do you actually cash both your paychecks every month and keep all the cash in the house? I don't feel comfortable with that right now - I would want to buy a safe.

And isn't it easier to pay your major bills online or with checks first, and then the envelope system is just for the extras? So for example, if my electric bill is $150 a month, do you really withdraw $75 cash per paycheck and then put it back in the bank to pay the bill at the end of the month?

ETA: Never mind...you basically answered my questions while I was typing this!  

hmp1

We have our savings/investments come out of our paycheck first so we never see it. We up this amount every time we get a raise. We dump a good part of our bonuses into savings/investments right away (DH gets quarterly bonuses and I get a yearly) we use the rest for vacations and home improvements. We each have our own checking account. DH pays the bills and I pay daycare (auto payment) and groceries the rest is our money to spend how we like. We have a spreadsheet that has our estimated monthly expenses (it auto averages the last 12mo) and then DH fills in the actual amount when he pays bills. He has it set to highlight a box yellow if we are within 2 weeks of the due date and red if we get within a week. He pays the bills early though so it is very very rare that they would ever go to yellow.

We don't track exact amount for groceries/gas/gifts but do have it included in our estimated monthly expense. We don't use cash for anything.

bonjourbelle05

We use mint.com and find it to be helpful. We are also using the Dave Ramsey approach to pay down our debt.

mrsjenni

My mom does the envelope system and it works wonders for her. Honestly, I can see the appeal of Dave Ramsey, but I could never do it myself.  Not that the envelope system is the only system he has, but I never have any cash.  I hate cash. I feel like, when I have cash, I end up spending more and it lasts like a second.  And I absolutely HATE going to the bank. I'd MUCH rather just use my debit card for everything.  

For now, I just have an excel spreadsheet for everything (bills, payments, "extra expenses" every month - i.e. birthday parties, gifts, etc.) It works for right now.  We spend all our extra money to pay down our credit cards which got kinda high when DH got laid off for a year in 2009. They should be all paid off in 3 months.  WOOT! After that, we'll be able to save more a month and/or put that money towards paying down our car or student loan (which just I have, DH's are paid off, but mine are high... 50k) and save for our new house. Good times. 

 

Hyaline

We have an Excel spreadsheet--we sat down and broke down our income into our nonnegotiable spending, our savings, and then played with "wiggle room stuff" like entertainment and groceries (because yes, we need groceries, but how much we allocate can vary).  A lot--a LOT--of our line items are actually savings items.  Anything that we spend a lot on once in a while--like Christmas shopping, buying contact lenses, car repair, vacation (haha vacation, that's funny)--we set aside a small amount every month for.  We have savings line items for car (we pay cash for cars instead of taking out loans), retirement, etc.  

In many ways it's similar to the envelope system, but it's all maintained digitally instead of actually using cash.  I don't care for using cash even though I know it's often recommended.  We have a tool through our bank that tracks all credit card and debit card spending, so we don't have to save receipts to "proof" our budget items, which we did before the tool and would do if we used cash.  I think this is vital--you can set up a budget but you have to have some way of checking yourself to make sure you're on it.  The cash/envelope system does that, or you can watch your spending another way, but you have to keep yourself accountable.  (Plus we get cash back on our credit card, which we pay off in full every month.  If you can be responsible with a credit card, it's a great system--free money.  Which we typically use for Christmas shopping and throwing a family holiday party.  Yay.) 

Also, if you consistently go over on a budget item, to us that means we were probably unrealistic about our original projection, not that we are consistently failing.  It can mean that, but sometimes it's that you need to rethink how you're spending on groceries, gas, whatever.

MommaP12

I just keep a spreadsheet listing what our income is in total for the month and then list each bill out under that and mark them off as they get paid and see what the "leftover" amount is.  We've paid down a lot of debt but just tracking everything in excel like this....and of course I enjoy emailing this out to VPs in my company apparently.

TCMom78

We use Quicken and track, and categorize every penny. All bills are paid electronically. All purchases possible are done on two credit cards that we pay off every month. We have no debt other than our mortgage. Our savings, investments, etc all go direct deposit from paycheck and we have one revolving cash account that we pay credit cards and bills from. Because its all in quicken, we can see where we are at any time. We pretty much don't have a budget because our spending seems to be consistent. When we get raises and bonuses, it all goes to savings account, so our "budget" is essentially based on base earnings from several years ago. That's what helps us save. We don't spend differently than we did 8 years ago, except for daycare and kid expenses.

mrsbhk22

We track everything on an excel spreadsheet. I auto bill pay everything I can daycare, cell phone, mortgage etc. I put a certain amount in a grocery store gift card for groceries at the beginning of the month. My kids school gets rewards and I have to keep it within that amount. Although we don't live pay check to pay check, I budget that way. Whatever is left in checking the day we get paid is transferred to saving. We charge everything for gas and restaurants on an American Express that gets awesome rewards. We haven't paid for a hotel room in years. It's just critical that you pay it off each month. I track those expenses weekly so we know if we are getting close to our max. We use no other credit cards.

I'm a numbers person, so I stalk things like our checking and the one credit card. I can see where it would be easy for people to just swipe and not think about it, but I literally don't carry cash. Ever. I'm a thief's nightmare. My DH lectures me about it all the time. I've had my purse stolen twice so I will never go back to cash!