Do you budget?

I'm trying very hard this year to get a better grasp on our finances and get serious about saving money. So far everyday of 2012 we spent money. I'm so disgusted.

Anyway I'm not sure what my budget should be. Guess I'll wait a month and see? Too lazy to look up last years stuff...

How do you do it?

I started saving money better by simply putting some aside automatically from each check. After a couple months I realized I never missed it. So I put a bit more aside and then things tightened up a little, so I left it at that. Now, it's $1000 month and I never notice it.

That's a good idea... We pay for everything by credit card, once all the bills are paid every month we transfer what's left to savings.... Some months $$ gets transferred into checking too...

But have you ever looked at your expenses and tried to lower them?

I really want to challenge myself to stick to a budget.

I'm also donating/throwing away one article of clothing for every new one brought into the house. I find this much easier to do with my husbands clothes.

I make 90+% of all my purchases (aside from my mortgage) through a credit card. That 90 includes all purchases that could be easily trimmed from a budget. Both of my cards have a "yearly statement" or equivalent feature that itemizes and categorizes all of my expenses. For example, I could look up "health care" or "home improvement" and see if I spent enough money on either of those two items to deduct from my income tax. Printing these forms also serves as sufficient documentation for the IRS.

Using this, I saw that my costs of groceries has risen sharply in the last two years even though I've been careful about purchases.

Oh wow I'm going to look at that, thanks.

How'd you get my account password?

P-a-s-s-w-o-r-d wasn't hard to guess

I have an awesome spreadsheet that tells me exactly how I can't afford my life.

We track all expenses monthly, and compare to prior years, yadda yadda.

I just downloaded an app...see how my iPad is paying for itself?

I just got a quote on a tankless water heater. Seriously, the guy just left. $3.5k to $4k. Stick that in your budget and smoke it.

This is a good thread.

I thought about creating some sort of a budget but I have no idea how to go about decreasing my expenses.

How much should a single woman be spending on groceries? How do I figure that out to know if I am spending too much or not enough? How much eating out is too much? Should it be a percentage of my earnings? Is it some arbitrary number like wanting to decrease what I am spending now by $20 a week?

I can never figure that part out.

I see eating out as a disposable income expense, because in nearly every case you can do it vastly cheaper at home.

So calculate your disposable income, and decide how much of that you want to spend on prepared food.

Not sure whether you have other disposal purchases that are important to you - but when you categorize them and they're all zero sum, it's amazing how you find the time and energy to cook for yourself more.

That makes sense

Squid, that is the first area we are cutting as well. We used to eat out a lot. Mostly because my husband works out of the house, and wants to get OUT! by the end of the day. It adds up pretty quickly, and it's wasteful, considering my kids only eat pasta with butter. I am roasting some veggies right now to make Pasta Primavera for dinner tonight.

I don't really have any expensive habits that are obvious like smoking or car-related stuff or a shoe fetish but I seem to spend money with nothing to show for it - like when you travel or on eating out.

I will track my spending and see where it's going. I never really thought about it but if eating at home more would create enough money to add a week to a vacation, then I'm all for it.

Heh. Eating out.


(sorry)

I have a little chunk saved to buy a house when Autumn graduates high school. Once she's out of school we're out of the rental. We may want to relocate.
B and I keep our money separate. We split the rent down the middle and I pay for all of the utilities and cable/phone/internet and my own car expenses. We rotate grocery shopping and he pays for heating oil, vacations, date nights/family outtings, and clothes for the kids plus his own expenses. If I'm bone broke he'll throw me money if I need it and he's not too concerned with me paying it back.
This really works for us. Everything is always paid on time and we never fight about money.

My parents are extreme budgeters and have afforded themselves a nice life with a beautiful home and an impressive art collection. They've only paid cash for cars. I can't claim the same and have never figured out how they do it, and we've never sat down and gone over it, but hey I'm an adult.

So, I've always tried to save a portion of each paycheck and when I've gotten a lump sum for whatever reason tried to make believe it doesn't exist. About 2 years ago when I got laid off I increased my savings from 10 to 20% of every paycheck and like 8 bucks said I realized I wasn't missing it and money in my checking account tends to get spent (thank you, Target).

I too would like to be much better at doing a formal budget but our expenses change so much from month-to-month I'm not sure how. For instance, in the winter our gas & electric can be as low as $75 and in the summer up to $300. How do you budget for that?

p.s. this is also on our minds since we'll be merging money with joints accounts and such in June.

DJ, do your utility companies offer capping? I capped my electric and I'm SO glad I did.

Nope. You pay for what you use.

There's a decent book called "The richest man in babylon" that espouses basically $8's plan above, and then wise investment of that 'found' cash.

I admit I don't follow it perfectly myself, and I didn't even finish it, but I'd still say it was worth a read.

Ha! good Caps. Is there a story behind your development of this hatred for water heaters?

I suspect you may have been trapped in one as a child. Or better, was inside one that was pushed down a hill.

The one in this house was installed in...get ready...drumroll.... 1987!

$975 to replace it like for like. That's in my budget.

You bring up the water heater thing often. I barely remember what my stance on water heaters was. Pretty much a 8-10yr disposable item is my stance now. Is that how you remember it?

Now that you mention it, I don't clearly remember it myself; just that it seemed like a very short time-period. I just like to rag you about it. Well, that and imagining children trapped inside water-heaters is just good clean fun.

How about the fact I bought a 25yr old water heater? Is that irony?

Sort of.. Ironic would be like having 10,000 spoons when you just need a knife. Or like Alanis Morissette getting buried alive in an avalanche of dictionaries.

LMAO at Caps and Funk!

Our Heat Pump/Air Conditioner/Furnace thing is on its last leg and we will have to replace it this year. Have you priced those lately? Fuck and shit and holy fucking shit, man!

Eating out rarely costs me anything.

Caps, I'm looking at a "hot water bottle" water heater. Basically, if you've got a hot water boilder, it's got a heat transfer coil that runs through what is essentially a thermos bottle, that is heated as a consequence of heating your radiators for 7 months out of the year up here in NE, and takes very little energy during the other 5.

If you've got forced air heat, it's a bigger deal to convert - which we do - but we're converting the first floor to radiant heat under the floor boards with a single boiler, and putting the bottle in then. We'll use the old forced air for just the 2nd floor, thus giving ourselves a 'zoned' heating system. We've got room in our basement for all this hardware, so it seems the way to go. Phase 2 will be digging a geothermal system to preheat the water going into the boiler, which will save even more, and phase 3 will be to add a second small boiler, kill the hot air for the 2nd floor, convert to low profile radiators up there, and have forced hotwater throughout. Phase 4 will be to convert the old duct system to A/C purposes, hopefully fueled largely by solar.

This is big dollars (with help from government subsidies), so we're talking years - but that's the plan.

I've got radiators. I'll take a look at what you're talking about.

mint.com. Sync it to your online banking. Spend a few hours going through and telling it exactly what every purchase you've made in the last 3 months was. (ie 'Target' = Groceries, where 'CVS' = late night booze run, where 'Walgreen's' = medicine.)

It's much easier to save more and spend less when you can see a pie chart breaking everything down into necessities and discretionary dollars.

I had a Mint.com account and I hated seeing the charts of how I spent my money, so I started taking out $200 from the ATMs every time I needed money. That way, stupid Mint.com couldn't rub it in my face how I spent my money because I'm always paying cash. Take that, budget spread sheets! Suckers.

Land sakes alive, the steak's alive.

I'm an avid budgeter. Started by writing absolutely everything you spend money on for 1 or 2 months. Just like with a food diary, you end up spending less simply because it is too silly to write some things down. Then i looked at what I'd spent and tried to be honest about any trends.
I realized I was spending a ton of money on books. I never worried about it because books are good for you, right? I did some research and figured out what I had spent the year before and decided the awesome effort to get to the library 3 miles away was all of a sudden worth it. Haven't been in a bookstore in a few years.
The grocery vs. restaurant thing is huge, too. I love a great meal and great wine, etc. and will pay good money for it but it was the $50 beer and ravioli dinner at the local pizzeria that was hoovering money at an alarming rate. It was initially annoying to plan meals and do more grocery shopping but we got over it when we saw the left over money in the checking account each month!
It's different for everyone but, as with anything, the little things really do add up:)

I use an excel spreadsheet and my ATM card. I keep all my receipts and then put the amounts spent into the different categories on the spreadsheet once a week. Then by four months you kind know where the money goes and what to expect you will pay in the future...

Love, Z

.

I use an excel spreadsheet and my ATM card. I keep all my receipts and then put the amounts spent into the different categories on the spreadsheet once a week. Then by four months you kind know where the money goes and what to expect you will pay in the future...

Love, Z

.

what's a "budget"?

A jet for budgie birds?

Yeah.
My idea of budget is along the idea of "giving money to God".

Take your money, in cash, and throw it up in the air as high as you can.
God will take what He needs, the rest is mine.

So, direct deposit puts it in the bank.
If, IF, there is any left (weekly) after bills and groceries,
buy extra toilet paper to flush.

I can't afford a book of matches.....AND THEY GIVE THEM AWAY........


My assests are frozen!!! (keeps the wife from spendin' 'em too!!!)

But she HAS credit cards......just another bill.
Or the fanning of the wick burning in the other end of the candle........

Everybody..Have fun tonight.
Everybody.....Wang Chung tonight.....



[EDT] Oh, and as far as buying a 25 y.o. water heater?
I probably did that. (came with the place) and it cooked for 20 more.
So when we bought and had installed the new one, it did not cost $975.00.
I was under $400.00.

Something that gets blown more often than a married man.

lizz, you make me laugh every time!