Budgets...

They are alot of work.


How do you budget your money for bills and such?

Are you ever just completely broke for two weeks waiting for the next check?

 

I get paid weekly but never am "broke". I have been self broke (I set a limit I can spend) but not broke in the normal sense.


I figure pay bills as such.

(1) If you borrow from friends of family they are #1
(2) Rent or house payment
(3) Electricity, water, sewer and garbage
(4) food
(5) phone
(6) insurance
(7) misc internet, subscriptions, ect

Best to take a month and save every single reciept, I mean you spend a dime on gum, save a reciept. Put it all on your computer like thru quicken and see at the end of the month how you spend your money. Log miles driven in your car as work related, shopping for needs and then everything else as other.

Most are amazed at how much money they blow.

 

My way is a lot simpler. Save money all summer. At the end, take all money. Pay for school/books/etc for one semester. take that same amount for next year and put it in a different account.

Then, take all remaining money and divide by 8. That is what I can spend in a month.

I usually make enought that I don't really have to worry about scrimping every dollar.

 

I've been 'broke' for a while now... it's been a rough winter... Trick is to be thrifty where you can - cook and eat at home instead of eating out; avoid buying shit you don't need; don't drive unless you absolutely have to... If you're the barfly type, pick only one night a week for your party habits.

Another trick.... no matter what you make in a week ... even if it's menial, ALWAYS put something into your savings account. If this week you can only afford $2, then put in $2. That way, on the week there is NO paycheck, you'll have something to at least feed yerself...

When you do have a semi-comfortable income... shit, I think Spooner nailed it right on the head.

 

Using the computer doesn't work for me because I don't really see where my money is going, stupid I know but it works for me, so I write everything on paper every two weeks. So the list of important things to pay for me is my debts to credit cards. I don't have a phone of any sort or cable tv. So monthly I pay for the two credit cards, gas/ energy, gas for my car, food. So I am never really completely broke but end up having five dollars to my name.

 

I need to get a savings account bad. I am hoping to start that up after I pay my cards off. I am taking a year off of school to save up for that too.

 

I pay all my overhead stuff first. Then what's left over is for drugs.

 

Yes, we have a budget and it works really well for us. We rarely use our credit card, and if we do, we pay it off in full that same month so we don't carry a balance.

Honestly, we've never had a time where we were broke. We've always had our bills paid on time, always had food in the house. My husband makes decent money, and I'm very frugal with it, so it stretches.

I feel pretty fortunate.

 

So how does your budget work? I understand what you are saying but how do you do it?

 

I don't spend money on crap I don't need, so it's never a problem for me. I also only own a single credit card, which I almost NEVER use unless I need to.

 

Creating the budget is the easy part, following the budget you've created is the hard part.

 

i dont budget well at all, but i feel I am getting better at it, i finally have my bank account and my savings up there pretty high.

But like usual, as soon as I get my checking and savings up to where I feel good about it. something always comes up where I have to spend it on something unexpected.

 

Basically we just average our monthly expenses and go by that. We have our budget set up in our computer so that we can closely follow what we're spending, graphs, charts, all that good stuff. We rarely ever use cash, we use our debit card which withdraws straight from our checking. We spend way more with cash on hand than by using debit. It's like, once you break a $20.00 it goes before you know it and you can't remember what you even spent it on. When we use our debit, we see exactly where the money goes, and we only spend what's necessary.

We have a set amount of the average in which we would spend each month on each of our expenses. Groceries, utilities, medical bills, house payment, insurance, gasoline, entertainment.

I'm a major bargain hunter too. I'm the clearance rack queen. I shop at the "better" stores but only buy when I can get kick-butt deals, especially for my kids' clothing. I watch items like a hawk. I'll go in and see something I love, but I refuse to buy it at full price. So I check back within a week, many times, it's been reduced in price. If I can hold off longer, many times the price will drop even further. That's when I buy.

We buy a lot of things in bulk, being a family of five. It saves a lot of money for us. Food, cleaning products, things like that. It's amazing how much money I've been able to save by doing that.

We have good medical insurance, but if we need medications, I always ask for the samples they have at the office. I know from working at a doctors' office that the drug reps are constantly coming in and bringing samples. Many times those samples end up being tossed out because they aren't used before the expiration date. So, I always ask for those instead of paying ridiculous amounts on prescription meds at my pharmacy.

We don't have cable, and haven't since we had our oldest son. We don't miss it either. We take the kids to the library a lot, and we get books and movies there for free.

We like to all go out to eat at the nicer, sit-down restuarants, but we have a list of the restuarants that offer free meals for the kids on certain days of the week. And, that's when we go. We can have all three of our kids eat free and only have to pay for my husband and I. Otherwise, our dining bill would be really high!

We put about $100.00 a week in our savings account too. This is money we don't touch, it's being used to save up more money for a downpayment on a new home.

Hmmm, we own one of our cars and the motorcycle, so we don't have payments on those besides insurance. Our other vehicle we do have a payment on, but it's really reasonable considering it's only a few years old. But we got a fantastic deal because we knew the person selling it.

Our house payment is very reasonable, and right now we're trying to spruce it up to get ready and either sell it, or possibly rent it out. Not sure yet. It would really be a good investment if we held onto the property and rented it out, but we need to do more research on the pros and cons of that before we really decide which is the better route for us.

But really, I've learned to be really frugal when it comes to living. The thing is though, we never go without. We've got vehicles, a house, we take vacations. Basically we just watch our money, and don't spend what we don't have. So that's basically how we budget.