Need budgeting help

[jmebonner]

I seriously need help setting up a budget and sticking to it. Anyone here have some ways that have actually worked for you? i know all the ways, MS MOney, Quicken, all that, but none of those work for me as my income varies greatly from check to check and my payouts vary too.
I think the ol' pencil and paper w/ maybe some of those account registry papers may work best for me.

Thanks!

jme

[NeoStarO1]

Well easiest way is to go through your papers and figure out which are fixed, varible and mixed expenses.

Okay let me explain:

Fixed expenses is a reaccuring expense each month that does not vary in dollars. Examples: TV, Internet, Rent. A Bill that has the exact amount each month.

Varible Expense is an expense that fluctuate, Good example of this is Electricity bill, gas bill, water bill, sewer bill, tolietries, food, household products ect...

Mix Expense is an expense that has both Fixed and Varible. A great example of this is your phone bill. You have yoru regular flat local charge calling which is a fixed rate and never changes, but your long distance calling is a varible. it depends on how much you use your phone long distance.

Obviously living expenses and car expenses are the most important, so start with those because you need those to live each month.


Get a piece of paper to write stuff down.
Write down all your fixed expenses that do not change from month to month.

Tally those up in one column.

Now go to your varible expenses. Take your last 6 months of the bills and average them out. This will give you an average needed for each month for these bills.

Tally those up in one column.

Now get your mixed expenses: (example: phone bill)

Put your flat rate down on one row and then average the last 6 months of the varible (long distance) and then tally up these columsn.

Now add the three columns together to get your monthy expense statement.

This is the amount you need to make minimum each month to cover living expenses.

Now on an another peice of paper. Write down in a column the amount of bills you pay out each month. So if you have 10 bills write on a piec eof paper 1 - 10 down in a column. Use the same number as number of differnt bills you have.

Now heres sometiesm the tricky part,

In order you prioritize the importance of the bill.

so for number one you may say.

1. Rent (most important)
2. Electricty (next important)
3. Gas bill ( next imporant)

You get the idea, Put them all in order in the order of imporance to you.

This way if you fall short in your wages in a month from your projected expenses you can "cut out" the least imporant bills or at least shave them off a little bit. This list will also help you see where you are spending your money. Perhaps there are somet hings you spend that are at the bottom of the list and you know you can do without that expense. Then change your goals and cut that expense to leave more cash for the other bills.

This is how I do mine. I have done this for years and I don't even look at my notes anymore because i've used this method for so long.

Only thing I use a computer for is to keep track of my checking acount. Everything else is done on paper or in my head now.

I find this method extrememly helpful. I do this for our business as well. This is more time consuming in a business as veras peresonal expenses.

Hope this is what you are looking for. One thing it does for sure it really makes a person look at what they spend on and once you know exactly where your money is going you'll actually probably find wastage.

Don't forget if you buy that 7/11 $1.39 pop every single day. Include that in your list. Its probaly something you can cut out.

Anyways good luck on that!

[jmebonner]

Thanks Neo, that's exactly what I was looking for! (I actually figured you'd be the one to reply) I'll do it today

[NeoStarO1]

LOL, ya counted on me eh? hehehehe

[jmebonner]

Sure did
And just to clarify, I mostly need to see where my $$ is going every month, it's not that I have a problem paying my bills (Don't want everyone thinking I'm a deadbeat! )

[osprey4]

I have money taken out my paycheck for mortgage, car payment (when applicable) and a house fund. So what's left is for bills and variable/discretionary spending.

I pay all the bills electronically (including charitable giving) and the money goes out when my paycheck arrives in our checking account, so what's left is for groceries and other variables. The important thing around our household is that our checking account balance reflects what we can spend after fixed bills are already paid.

For tracking where the money goes, I've used Quicken for ten years and really love it. Also helps at tax time.

[RedFury]

We are working on getting our house in financial order too JME

It's a hard thing when you have bad habits to break ( impulse shopping kills our bank account usually ).

We are trying to wean ourselves off of our impulse shopping by having the ol paychecks split into 2 accounts, and the 2nd account has money coming out of it into a savings account.

This way, we limit the amount of money we have available to spend, and we have a back up checking account if things get thin, and a savings account for when things happen. We just started this, and hopefully it will work...the hard part is sticking to it

The way it sits, we should have 5 grand saved every year between the extra checking account and the savings account. Realistically, we should be able to carry over at least have that much every year.

Financial plans to me are like a diet is to Opra. I haven't found one I can stick with long term.

[MTAtech]

Since 1985, I've had electronic banking so that I can download the tranaction data into a database. I download all my credit card transactions too. I avoid cash as it isn't easily tracked to a transaction. One sees right away where the money goes.

[jmebonner]

Agreed on the banking, Ive had it for three years now, don't know what I did without it. Problem for me is I'm on the road a lot and some money disappears there, or at walmart, or wherever. I need to get it cut down to a minimum The good news is, I just found out my wife's student loan only has a $77 balance One and a half more payments on that bad boy! Just did my taxes and it's not near as good as last year...being laid off for 2 1/2 month's will do that, I suppose...

[j-mac/820]

Hi folks, in reading some of the posts I see alot of the same problems that we have with our budget. I'll try and spell it out.
In late 2001 we filed chapter 7 after 5 years of owning our home and tap dancing through all the bills. We lost the house, both vechicles, and our dignity in this mess. We did find a house to rent at less than our mortgage was and we bought two clunker vechicles to get to work and such. But it seems as though we keep making the same mistakes. Even though we should have about $600 to $700 a month surplus we always end up short and as a result of that we start digging a hole all over again.
I guess that my question is how do we set up a budget that pays the bills on time, catches up all the arrearages, and allows us to save $ to get back into owning a house before we are too old to consider it.
Are there CPA's or something that help controll the cash flow? Mabey take us by the hand and lead us through it?