After seeing a paycheck go to the wind, I, or rather, we, decided to get up a budget. Budgets have always scared me before or seemed so complicated, so I decided to make my own up. It has turned out great and we have followed it! I have SUCH a peace of mind knowing where our money is going and knowing how much we have to spend in each 'dept'.
I write in the check amt, then fill in the previous bal in the check acct. Then I subtract tithes (10%) and savings (5%). This is what I have to budget. Then I fill out all my bills that are due or will be due before the next check. I write these down and deduct from my balance.. Whatever is left, I categorize like this: Gasoline, Food (Eating out), Food (Groceries), Home Repairs, Car Maintenance, and Misc. Most of the leftover money (around 30%) goes to Gasoline. Isn't that sad?! I only get groceries twice a month, so some paychecks I don't have to allow for it. Anyway another paycheck is here tomorrow and I still have some money leftover in all the categories but one (GAS). I can't wait to do tomorrow's budget!! :o) Am I a dork or what?
Oh and I made my templates on WORD. I even have a 'table' that has the extra expenditures so we can record on it as we spend. Every night (or every other night) I take all receipts and deduct them from the category in which they apply. I update the 'table' so both Dh and I will know how much is left in each category.
I'm psyched. :o)
Find Your Fight Song And Sing It
7 years ago
3 comments:
You are a dork! ;)
We don't even have enough money to make a budget. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. If you add up all our bills and expenses they come to more than Dh's paycheck. Nice, huh? So we just take it one paycheck at a time and only spend what we absolutly must. We're surviving somehow. It seems whenever we start getting too far behind we get a windfall that just or almost catches us up. Must be God is all I can figure :)
If you were married John Acklen, you would be well-versed in the area of budgets. We live and die by yours!!! I'm not sure i can say I 've ever been psyched by it, but it is a great thing to have. Sometimes I think I should make copies of our budget and pass it around to our parents and g-parents who think we are being "tight" and unreasonable about our money situation so they will STAY OUT of it! But I doubt they could even make sense of it!
Budgeting is SO important! Good for you! We are always working on it - sometimes doing better than at other times :)
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