Can we talk about budgets?

[becoming]

DH and I have been needing to do a budget forever, but I don't really know where to start. Did you use a certain program or system to start your budget, or do you just keep yours on paper? Did you begin at the start of a new month? Any tips would be great.

[mightymoo]

I am becoming a budget junkie, its really lame!

I just use Excel (or any other spreadsheet software). I start a new tab every month (copied from last months tab). I have the total amount DH brings home at the top (after savings & taxes). I have a section for bills (phone, internet, cable, car, insurance, mortgage, taxes, etc) and a section for expenses. Below the total income at the top, I have a big box where I subtract what we've spent (total of bills and expenses) from what he brought in, so I can see exactly where we stand easily. If I go in the negative one month, I carry the negative to the next month to pay off the 'debt' (since we have a cushion in checking, its not really debt, but we can't continue to spend more than we take in without running into problems eventually).

So I start the month with all the bills filled it and then I put placeholders for budgeting three major categories - groceries, gas and commuting (DH has to spend a lot to commute) - that way I know right at the beginning of the month that I have say $200 left for anything other than groceries, gas, commuting or bills. That's all I do on a monthly budget basis.

I do have an annual budget though - because it sucks when a ton of annual items hit you all one month and you feel like you can't spend anything and/or you are playing catchup afterwards. So I keep track of what I need to pay for annual items and pay into that every month as part of the 'bills' section. This budget includes - presents, holidays, vacation, memberships, christmas, home improvement, etc. I think next year I'm going to go more detailed with the annual budget, because I'm finding I like doing it that way.

[polyhymnia]

We use Quicken now but used excel for ages.

Before you do a budget, spend a month writing down every penny you spend. This will help you be more realistic when actually making your budget so you can stick to it.

[dachshundqueen]

I just wrote out my expenses that are fixed as well as a few other things on notebook paper.

I keep it in a notebook where I also write all my fabulous ideas on how to save myself money.

We each are going to be getting x amount of cash (for gas and groceries for me and for gas and auto parts for him) each month. There is no discretionary money in our budget right now, so we don't have that to worry about.

Liz

[Scribe]

I've been using and liking Pear Budget recently. It's a lot less complicate than a lot of other's I've tried, and fully customizable.

[MorganRiley]

i use microsoft money...been using it for nearly 7 years

before that I just had a BIG accounting tablet and put a whole month on two open pages

[jkpmomtoboys]

Quicken, Quicken, Quicken...

[Attila the Honey]

Paper and pen in a notebook!

Dh and I sit down every Thurs. night and reconcile our balances, figure out what needs to be paid, adjust or write our budget and count our Emergency Fund. I could never make budgeting on the computer work for us, so we just do it the old fashioned way.

[MommaCrystal]

We use quicken.

Just a warning though. I've read, and then experienced this myself. It can take 4,5, even 6 months of trial and error and mistakes and redos to get a budget that works well for the family. I'd say it took a good 4 months for us to get it going well. We over estimated some things, under estimated others, and had a whole slew of things we just forgot. Then we learned we didn't an "extra category" for those things that come up that you didn't plan on. We only keep about $20 in there.