What does your budget physically look like?

[Pumpkin_Pie]

How do you make up your budget? Do you use a spreadsheet on your computer? Old fashioned pen and paper? Little columns? Lined paper with a page for each payday? Some sort of monthly thing?

I feel like I have tried so many different ways of writing up a budget, and keep coming back to little columns in a small notebook that end up getting all smushed together. I list all of my paydays and then under each one, the bills that I plan to pay that day. I then forget about some bill or other, add it in, and then things get all messy, I stress out and I tear it up and start all over again.

Any suggestions?

[neetling]

Mine is the checkbook. The pay comes in, I pay all the bills and do a big grocery/necessities shop, then what's left is what's left and I dole it out as needed for the rest of the month. If I know we're going to need something major, then I set some aside for it.

[Kristine233]

The only things that are budgeted are the mortgage and the groceries. Everything else is pay as we go and however the paychecks fall, lol. We're awful. But DH and I actually keep our money seperate and split the bills (based on income) so we each only have a few to keep track of and worry about.

[sanguine_speed]

We've started using the free Sunset edition of Microsoft Money. Our budget is there, as are our scheduled bills and spending tracking.

[Denvergirlie]

Mine is in excel

I note what paycheck will pay for what things, I have a very simple formula that I created to add and double check my math, so I know what is what.

Excel is best for me as I can move money around, play with different allocations, etc.
I started to get out of debt about 4-5 years ago, and created a simple spreadsheet that I could constantly edit, etc.

[Poddi]

What we do is put at least a month's worth of expenses in the checking account. Whenever a bill comes we pay it off right away, so it won't be forgotten. For groceries we have a separate account that DH put a fixed amount in every year. Usually it's from tax refund. We set an entire year's food money aside and we don't worry about grocery money at all from regular paychecks. I keep it in a high interest account, and move the set monthly amount into a checking account. I buy food with debit card from that checking account. I usually do a pantry and freezer challenge in the last month before new deposit comes in.

I suppose this won't work so well if your budget is very tight. We don't do too much budgeting for other things really. The thing is both DH and I are used to being frugal for so long we no longer need to watch what we spend, and bills usually come exactly as expected anyway.

[sunnysandiegan]

We use Quicken and Excel. I track categories in Quicken of all of our actual expenses and let Quicken suggest a budget as a starting point.

I use Excel to create a detailed budget. Each column is one month. All income is at the top in one section. Expenses are in sections by type with subtotals. Savings accounts are in one of the "expenses" sections. I print the whole thing on one sheet of paper.

[Crunchy*VT*Mom]

Excel Spreadsheet.

I carry a tiny little notebook in my wallet and everytime I buy something, I write it in that notebook.

On Wednesdays (Face Your Finances Wednesday) I update the Excel spreadsheet with everything I spent that week.

I learned that in the "Spend Smart" class that CVOEE offers. Did you ever end up taking that course? The "budgeting" class was really useful for me.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

Originally Posted by Crunchy*VT*Mom

Excel Spreadsheet.

I carry a tiny little notebook in my wallet and everytime I buy something, I write it in that notebook.

On Wednesdays (Face Your Finances Wednesday) I update the Excel spreadsheet with everything I spent that week.

I learned that in the "Spend Smart" class that CVOEE offers. Did you ever end up taking that course? The "budgeting" class was really useful for me.

I totally forgot about that class! I went in to chat with them and never ended up taking the class. I need to give them a call again, thanks for the reminder. I am trying so hard to get it all under control right now.

How do you track income? I have been selling a bunch of things on Craigslist lately and can't quite figure out how to track that.

[CarrieMF]

I do mine in an account book.

I have 2 budgets, 1 for the 15th and one for the 26th. The 2nd one was the 30th/31st, but I'm moving my cheque(the 26th) to the end of the month budget as we have less money at the end of the month. It really won't make a difference except in my mind though.lol

Dh is salaried + a small bonus. He gets paid the 15th & 30th/31st of each month. It is roughly the same, but there is a minimum guaranteed amount & that's what I put for his budget. Anything over is extra bonus. My pay is calculated hourly, but I'm paid salaried unless I take a day off work or work extra. So I have my minimum on the 26th. My sub work I usually have as 0 unless I know I"ve worked before the budget, but I like to think of my sub work as extra $. Child tax credit is the same every month unless one of my kids has a birthday in a year that it adjusts due to their age and in July when they have their annual adjustment.

both budgets have very specific things that come out. most of our bills are budgeted for exactly the same amount. We don't have alot of variable expenses.

both budgets have our income, then expenses. Then a column for budget & actual, then one for a +/- though I usually never go that far.

How do you track income? I have been selling a bunch of things on Craigslist lately and can't quite figure out how to track that.

our income is dh's cheque, my cheque, child tax credit, I have another check IF I sub so I put that at the EOM. For income generated from selling stuff that'd be in a Miscellaneous income. If I have a minimum amount in mind I'd budget that otherwise I'd put a 0 & then we'd have a surplus income.

What I would do with selling stuff income is actually pool it all until one of our paydays & add it in as a misc. fund. Now if you absolutley HAVE to spend it I'd do up weekly budgets. If you aren't planning on selling something that week then your budget would be 0 (unless it's a payday week).

[lyterae]

Our budget is in excel, I also track everything in our checkbook. The excel spreadsheet has many different categories and we have different "funds" set-up in there that we can easily track. For example on designated paydays the money comes in and gets split out to certain things like tithe, groceries, gas, medical, etc.. We have a projected budget through next spring. We review every month and revise based on insurance changes, propane use,etc..

[matthia]

Pen and Paper over here.

I had been using Excel and I had this really complicated system, with a page for each account and all sorts of unnecessary mess going on. In retrospect, I don't think I had a very good idea of how to budget.
We have a set of bills that are constant every month and we both have an allowance for things like lunches (husband), transportation (gas, bus fares), and personal (incidentals, clothes, beer (husband again)).
We;re both maniacal about putting everything on our Credit cards so we can see EXACTLY where we're spending our money and we almost NEVER take out cash. When we do it's always for something specific so I know where to put it in our budget. About once a week I go through our accounts (I love online banking) and take stock of where we;re sitting. I also keep track of our income at the bottom of the page. Some is set, like DH's paycheque's and my EI but I always make sure to keep track of extra's like gifts, tax returns, bonuses, those random 3paycheque months, etc...
At the bottom of each page (so, at the end of each month) I check out how we did: income - output = surplus (god willing)

I do have some debt repayment factored into our bills but I used to have a bad habit of thinking I had more surplus than I did, putting too much on our debts and then having to go over when a (not-so) surprise bill popped up. Or putting some money into savings and then having to take it outy later that month to cover rent or something. Hopefully that won't happen anymore.

Anyways, Pen and paper. It seems to work best for me...

[paxye]

I use Quicken...

I did try Mint.com and it was a great system for budgeting but I really like the feature in Quicken to see a calendar to see ahead...

My DH's job is stable. I have the Quicken calendar set up so I see when his paychecks come in, when bills need to be paid, estimates for groceries and household purchases, transfers into our savings, birthdays etc...

I can also try things out by scheduling larger purchases and figuring out what are the best options so that we never go under a certain amount that I feel comfortable with.

[laughingfox]

Excel.

DH's paycheck varies, and most of our monthly bills vary, so it's nice to be able to quickly and easily average things for estimation purposes. It's also nice that we can type in the waiting bills ahead of time, input the paycheck data when we get it, and immediately see the total amount left at the bottom.. but it would be even nicer if that number at the bottom was bigger.

[Vaske]

Maybe it would help for you to make a master list of recurring bills, and their approximate amounts and due dates? And what percentage of your income is going into each one? That is more what a traditional budget is.

What you are doing now is working out your whole cash flow, and I can see how that would drive you crazy. I only match up incoming money with outgoing bills when I want to see if we can afford some unusual expense. I keep at least a month's worth of expenses in our checking account as a cushion. My family's income is very regular, and we allot the same amounts toward groceries, household supplies, donations, rent, and personal/entertainment money each week. I've set these at levels I know we can afford, and don't really have to think about them every time.

It sounds like the visual messiness of working on paper is getting to you. Maybe a spreadsheet or even a text document on the computer would be better. Personally, I do everything on paper, but that works for me.

Even a calendar might work better for you, if you put all your paydays and bills on it.

[Jenn_M]

I use Excel and our income only comes from 2 sources (my paycheck, DHs paycheck) so that's fairly easy to track.

[dizzysmom]

We use an Excel spreadsheet. Both of our checks vary, but that way I can enter the amount of the bill so that it gets paid as soon as one of us does.

[HeatherAtHome]

We have an extra calendar near our computer (paper, not ON computer) where we mark in monthly bills, due dates for extra stuff (electrician, school taxes, vet appt etc).

I like having a calendar so that I can see the month at a glance and it's laid out in a way I can picture.

[Mulvah]

Edited by Mulvah - 10/16/11 at 2:58pm

[texmati]

We are terrible. We have no budgeting system. We are frugal; and have managed to save quite a bit of money, but no tracking.

All our money goes into one pot. We use credit cards to do all of our purchases, and then at the end of the month DH pays all the cards off along with the mortgage, utilities, etc. Once we have a certain amount of money in the pot, we will park it in another bank account. The pot keeps growing, but we don't have any real idea of what our 'run rate' is, or what our Emergancy fund totals, or a new car fund, or what.