I have been told FREQUENTLY over the past year that I am an amazing budgeter. I support a family of three on about 24K take home, with a mortgage, two cars and tuition for my husband and private school tuition for my daughter. While, I do coupon and get as much free as humanly possible, I also am a very strict budgeter. If you have been wanting to budget, first and foremost, I would be happy to write a budget with you! You can e-mail me at chrissyhiborik@yahoo.com for some one-on-one interaction. Otherwise, these tips will help you get started...
1. Spend an entire month writing down everytime you spend money. EVERY TIME. Whether its a caffeine run to QT or your mortgage payment, write it down.
2. Establish a list of all of your recurring bills, all of them, not jsut the ones you think you might pay. This list should include mortgage, utilities, credit card payments, student loan payments, car payments, and any other recurring bills you can think of.
3. Sit down and figure out how much you spend in a month on anything incidental (pas, clothing, dining out, entertainment, toys, etc.). Do not try to cut it back to what you think you should be spending, otherwise you will NEVER stick to your budget.
4. Starting with your monthly income start subtracting expenses... It should look something like this
3000-monthly income
-1200-mortgage
______________
1800
-400-car payment and insurance
______________
1200
-100-electric bill
______________
1100
-100-natural gas bill
______________
1000
-150-cell phone bill
______________
850
-100 cable bill
______________
750
-100 student loan payment
______________
650
Let's say your recurring bills end there, that leave's you $650 to play with every month! Don't forget to save!
So simple, but it really works! Continue to write down what you spend, to amke sure you don't go over!
Be blessed and get it free! The Freebie Junkie :)
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Thanks for this little monthly breakdown. I consider myself a decent budgeter...my husband gets paid weekly so I look at my budget and pay my bills weekly. Still I never really looked at it monthly and it gives me a much better snapshot of how much money we have coming in (that we could potentially save). Thanks for a refresher. Now I have a new outlook on my budget! :O)
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