Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Budgets for dayzzz, y'all!

Here is something that probably about 90% of my friends, family and acquaintances know about me: budgeting is my life. There is no exaggerating that fact. I have a note saved in my iPhone of bills and various budget categories, a similar word document saved on my work computer, and multiple little slips of paper in my purse with budget notes written on them at all times.... When I say budgeting is my life, I mean it.

I feel like everyone should have a budget of some sort to help keep track of your money, and make sure your money is working for you. There are tons of different budgeting methods that you can research and try out to see which one fits you best. Or if you're like me, you can take bits and pieces from different methods and make something that is totally your own. 

Here are a few budget methods that you could be a good fit for you:

50/20/30 Budget: 50% of your income goes to "essentials," which are things you HAVE to pay for, such as housing, utilities, food and transportation... 20% of your income would then go to savings... 30% would be "personal expenses," Mint describes those as cell phone bills, gym memberships and coffee shops etc.

Zero Based Budget: This is one of the budget methods that I use to make my custom budget method. A zero based budget is where you "give every dollar a job." This is the preferred budget method of personal finance guru Dave Ramsey recommends. If your paycheck is $1000 then you plan for each of those $1000. 

Envelope/Cash Budgeting: This is another portion of my custom budget method. Basically you figure out how much you need for certain things, let's say $50 for groceries, you put that in an envelope and once that $50 in the grocery envelope is gone then you have no more grocery money until you get paid again. You have to have some self control with this one, you're not supposed to borrow from one envelope to put money in another envelope. If you get to your next payday and you have $10 left in your grocery envelope you can either only put in $40 or you could put in the normal $50 and have some extra for the week.

After you decide which budget method (or if you're like me, which combination of budgets) sounds good for you, it's time to plug in your numbers! Most people will tell you that to create a new budget you need to track your spending for a month, others will tell you that you can go thru your bank statements and figure out where you spend your money. Once you've got that done you can re-evaluate how much you spend on your daily Starbucks trips or in my case, Whataburger.

Now that I've rambled on explained some different budget methods and how to create a budget, I'm going to tie it all together and tell you why this is my first in depth post! I am going to use the month of August to track my spending and start a fresh budget. Honestly, I've never tracked my spending for a month... I just pick a number for my budget categories and go with it, and I'm not saying my budget has been failing me but I know it could be better.

Wish me luck on my August tracking adventure!

Does anyone have any tips on coming up with a new budget? I'm definitely all ears!


Disease Called Debt

8 comments:

  1. Woo! Good luck with your new budget! The first time I made one, I totally forgot about once a year costs like my car insurance or eye exams.

    And I LOVE Whataburger's honey butter chicken biscuits. Totally worth it's own little budget line.

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    1. I have those in my mind so I can add them to a spreadsheet so hopefully I don't forget. Lol.

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    2. Also, I thought Whataburger was just in the south. Am I wrong?

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  2. Good luck! Expense tracking helped us a ton...we realized that we had underestimated our food spending by about 40%, because we were grocery shopping more frequently than we thought we were. And there were a lot of little things we weren't accounting for either. So I hope it gives you a lot of good information.

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    1. So far, so good. Except that I eat out too much. It's really eye opening.

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  3. We're using Personal Capital, but I should probably manually track our expenses for a month again just to see what's happening. It's a lot easier to track when you're in a #yearofno (spending), right? haha

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    1. I could never get behind sites like Personal Capital and Mint. I like to write my stuff down in a notebook or check register... it must be the old lady in me.

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  4. I still write down my expenses when I travel, but at home I use Quicken and I enter them manually. I feel like when you track in a manual way, you're more aware of what you're really spending. Good luck with the new budget!

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August Tracking Adventure Week 2

Woop. The second week of my August Tracking Adventure has come to a close and here are the results: --> Circle K $21.01 Gas Pharmacy...