Do you budget your money??

[drift925]

I'll be leasing a house with some roommates pretty soon and my bills will be increasing significantly. I thought the best remedy to not completely screw myself was to actually start budgeting my money (before my bills were a joke and I make a lot more money than I would spend). So I was wondering if you guys had any really good budget templates that you use? I was thinking about filling one out every quarter for each year.

[highwaystar22]

Well if most of your bills are consistent then it's not too bad. I have one checking account for play money, one for bills, and a emergency savings account.

First thing is to get a savings account and stash at least 10-20% of each check in it. This is your emergency fund to be TOUCHED NEVER. I can't count the number of times that thing has saved my ass. Things blow up on cars from time to time, crazy overage on phone bill, power bill, medical expenses etc.

Then if you eat out alot try to adjust your eating habit to buying more food from the supermarket. a 1/4 pound of lunch meat at like 3 or 4 bucks and a loaf of bread (2 bucks) will feed you lunch for more than a week if you're not a fatty. Eating out takes so much money.

I usually calculate an overage on all bills. so If phone is normally 70 then I stash 100 in my "Bills" checking account. same goes for all. If power is normally 150 then 180 goes in the bills account. That way if you do have a bill go over then normally the extra from the other bills will take care of it. After you have put your funds to handle all the bills in the "bills" checking account transfer the rest to your "play" checking account and have fun. Just make sure you sped it frugally, and ALWAYS keep a register of the transactions you make so you don't get blasted with overdraft fees. I work for an extremely large US bank and this is probably the simplest method. Having an extra account for bills helps to ensure you don't spend the money you have set aside for bills for other stuff...... like alcohol....... when you're wasted..... with your friends at the strip club...... I know from experience. Sometimes the Grey Goose can get the better of you.... Hah

If you want a long term projection take your avergage food expenses for a week and multiply by 12 weeks. For the utilities and such just multiply by three for your quarter totals. Adding a little extra in for these types of bills really helps when you use a quarter projection at a time. Utilities tend to increase in the summer due to the cost of cooling your home. I live in FL and my bill went up 80-100 just from running the AC in my old apartment. Granted it had crappy insulation, but there should be some increase.

Main thing is SAVE SAVE SAVE. You never know when you'll need it.

[stiizy]

^^ he covered it all

[LeftNutOfGowd]

Just make sure your roommates don't lag on the rent or on the bill.

And try your hardest to save save save open a bank account if you have to

[enkei2k]

a high interest savings account never hurt me before... Online Savings, Online Payment and Online CD Accounts, HSBC Direct (http://www.hsbcdirect.com) 3.5% for savings and like 2.5% for checking. that's pretty good, even though it's not the 5% it was from last year. 3.5% is still better than nothing.

[Mi Beardo es Loco]

I find that when I save the most money I pack my lunches and not eat out so much. Since I've decided I want to buy a house in less than 8 months I've saved almost $20k because of this and strictly watching what I buy.

[SexPanda]

I figured out, in my situation, making a little more than 1200 a month, I would be able to live OK if I had a room mate in a 500 dollar apartment...

But I would have no money to spend on anything I really wanted, IE car parts. So yeah I budget my money, 300 for car note and insurance, 150 for gas, and the rest goes to car parts... because I live with my dad lol. Shit im only 19 i'll move out soon enough.

[BustedS13]

i did when i had my last apartment. then i moved in with my parents again (huge mistake never do it) and i stopped, and i can't manage my cash for shit. the only money i hold onto is what i put into stock. i'm buying a house with a buddy of mine, and once i move i'll definitely be writing down everything i buy again. i used to do that and you'd be amazed at how bad you hemorrhage cash when you're not thinking about it.

[drift925]

I know budgeting money is the key to having a huge savings account, hence this thread! Haha, I was just hoping that you guys had a template you guys could share. I was just hoping for some cool free info, if anything Ill create a template and let you guys check it out later. I know excel is amazing at this, I just completely dont know how to use it lol, so Ill be doing a bootleg template on MSWord.

[highwaystar22]

i did when i had my last apartment. then i moved in with my parents again (huge mistake never do it) and i stopped, and i can't manage my cash for shit. the only money i hold onto is what i put into stock. i'm buying a house with a buddy of mine, and once i move i'll definitely be writing down everything i buy again. i used to do that and you'd be amazed at how bad you hemorrhage cash when you're not thinking about it.

Exactly! Extremely wise words. +Rep for you. I would have people come in my office and complain about overdraft fees and tell me that we screwed them and they wanted their fees back and it was our fault. I'd sit them down and ask them for their register so we could get to the bottom of it.

I got the same dumb ass deer-in-headlights look everytime I asked it. After that it was pretty much a, "I'm stupid. You're right I f'd up my account. Can you please please please refund those fees?" conversation. If they were cool and didn't cuss me out I usually refunded all the fees and told them not to do it again. If they gave me stank attitude and verbally abused me they got nothing back. Go ride the "tough shit express". Put "I want me fees refunded" and shit in the other hand and see what you get first.

So it goes to show you. Act courteous to the people who handle your money, and can help you out, and 99% of the time they will as much as they can. I know I did. Act like a dick, and you'll prolly take it in the butt.

[MELLO*SOS]

make a budget in excel. Just like a log of what you're going to spend, on what day. Utilities, rent/mortgage, insurance, car, gas, maintenance, food, entertainment, income, savings transfers. Break your expenses into single expenses, weekly expenses and monthly expenses, drop them in for the next 3-6 months.

It's easy to create a budget; sticking to it and managing it is the difficult part.. Open a few checking/savings accounts, and update your budget against your account balances once a week or so..

Edit: There are also mmany financial softwares that can help you. One app I've used in the past is called moneydance (http://moneydance.com/), IIRC it contained a budget module. After all the softwares I've tried, I ended up writing my own to track & manage my budget.. GL

[hitman]

mine situation is a lot simpler than you, but i just add up how much money i need for the month for food, my portion of rent/utilities, and its about 1k. then i make sure i have that in my checking account. if you are trying to plan for the year, just figure aug-sept-oct-nov-dec is 5 months, soyou need 5k minimum in there at this time. anything over is drifting money:) oh i have to buy books again for school, shit lol there goes a fwe hundo

[ESmorz]

I spend all my money as soon as I get it.

I'm awesome.

Who needs money?

[Mi Beardo es Loco]

I spend all my money as soon as I get it.

I'm awesome.

Who needs money?

exactly. you can't bring it with you so spend it while you got it. but the trick is don't spend it too fast to where you can't benefit from certain investments. That's the strange median.

[Future240]

I dont budget persay, I just make sure that bills come first. After that what money is left over can be spent, but I try not to, cuz you never know when something might happen.

[spoolandslide]

i try to work on a strictly cash basis

i put the money i need for a bill in a sealed envelope and just dont open it
date the envelope and you can move on to the next bill

[Vision Garage]

Damn i wish i could budget. But life hits you hard when you dont live with your parents!

[g6civcx]

make a budget in excel. Just like a log of what you're going to spend, on what day. Utilities, rent/mortgage, insurance, car, gas, maintenance, food, entertainment, income, savings transfers. Break your expenses into single expenses, weekly expenses and monthly expenses, drop them in for the next 3-6 months.

It's very simple. This is what everybody should do.


Make a simple Excel/Mac version spreadsheet. List all of your fixed expenses and minimum monthly payment: mortgage/rent, car, insurance, CC, student loans, etc.

If you have accounts that are paid more frequently than monthly then you need to do a weekly budget, but most accounts are paid monthly. Adjust to your situation.

Then list for each account the monthly due date. I know that some accounts change due date month to month so do the best you can for the upcoming month.


Sort all of the accounts by the monthly due date. Now you know what bills you have to pay from one paycheck to the next.


If you get paid once a month, you know that you have to stretch that paycheck all the way until next month. If you paid biweekly but most of your expenses are due at the month, you know that you have to save up your paycheck to cover for the beginning of the month.

Pretty simple so far.

We haven't covered variable costs like food, gas, clothings, etc. yet, but assuming you can go paycheck to paycheck with some money leftover while paying all of your bills on time, then this is your budget surplus.

I recommend cutting going out, gas, and clothings as much as possible. For food, I recommend preparing your own food but do not cut your food budget. Food is the last thing you cut! Drinks and cigs can go out the window if you can't bum them off other people.

Once you've figured out what your food budget and other variable cost budget is, you try to slash them as much as possible. But at least you know the max you have to spend and try to come in under that amount.


Now, assuming you can do all that and still have money left over, I commend you because most people find themselves in a deficit. That's how you get into debt. They prioritize the wrong things and find out they don't have enough money for the necessities.


When you get your paycheck, look at your spreadsheet and look at what bills you have to cover until the next paycheck. Whatever you have left should be alloted to food and other stuff.

IF you manage to have some leftover after that, I recommend putting half into savings and using the other half to pay your bills ahead of time.

When picking which bills to pay, obviously housing comes first. Then car. Then probably high interest credit cards.

I don't recommend dumping a large amount of money into one single account though, because even though that account is low, say next month you're low on cash. You still have to pay the minimums on all the other accounts.

Think of it as Space Invaders, where there are columns of spaceships coming at you. If you focus and shoot down an entire column, even though that single column is destroyed, the other columns still have spaceships coming down at you.

A better way is to make a pass and shoot the next one on each column. Then if you have time left, make another pass and shoot one more from each column.


This way, even if you're low on cash, you still have some time left to deal with the whole thing as opposed to having an empty column but have other columns coming down on you.

Makes sense?


Once you can pay off everything as soon as possible, I commend you even more. Now you have to decide between paying off any debt you may have or invest in your retirement.

If you have no debt it's a no-brainer, but if you do have debt then you have to weigh the retirement benefits with prepaying your debts early.

This is a different topic. So when you get to this advanced stage we can revisit this issue.


Good luck with everything. Use your head and think analytically. Many people have been successful and many have not. Which one do you want to be?

[DALAZ_68]

id like to put my .02 in by sayin...the less responsabilities u have the more u should be saving...

i dont have rent, all i pay for monthly is phone bill and CC and every six months insurance...

i make over 500 a week, only 300 is needed for my monthly bills so im saving roughly 200-300 a check, mind u other expenses like gas and food...sadly i dont have enough time for prepared lunches...though it would save me an extra 50- 70 a week...

one great thing to have is oatmeal for breakfast...either the multipack with 4 diff flavors or the OG kind is never fail with apple or banana chopped in:bigok:

[redZENKI]

i've got an excel sheet made for personal budgeting that you might be interested in. you basically just fill in your monthly expenditures and the formulas figure out what you spend and what you should save. pm me with your email and i'll send it to you if you'd like.

[drift925]

Well this is how I wrote mine out, I started with all the money I currently have and went from there (yes ALL of it, every penny). Each day respresents your payday and you work all your bills around those dates (so obviously if a bill is due on Aug 18 and you get paid on Aug 8th and Aug 22nd, you will logically deduct that bill from your Aug 8th paycheck). After the deductions you move on to your next payperiod and add the amount you get paid that day from your previous balance. That way you basically can see how much money you have over each payperiod.

August 8th

+ $XXX

- $xxx Rent
- $xxx Phone
- $xxx DSL
- $xxx Cable
- $xxx Car Payment
- $xxx Insurance

August 22nd

+ $XXX

- $xxx rent


September 5th

+ $XXX

- $xxx Misc.
- $xxx Misc.


September 19th

+ $XXX

- $xxx rent
- $xxx car
- $xxx sprint

I know this is still a rough draft and it doesnt show your the variable expenses which are gas, food, entertainment etc. But it helps me keep track of the left over money I will have for those variable expenses.

[SexPanda]

You know what I do to save money?

Buy gallon jugs of bottled water, and cartons of cigarettes... But the gallon jug is a good deal. Especially when its 102 outside and 121 in the building i work... I save on average... 30 dollars a month.

[pbcstylez]

Well this is how I wrote mine out, I started with all the money I currently have and went from there (yes ALL of it, every penny). Each day respresents your payday and you work all your bills around those dates (so obviously if a bill is due on Aug 18 and you get paid on Aug 8th and Aug 22nd, you will logically deduct that bill from your Aug 8th paycheck). After the deductions you move on to your next payperiod and add the amount you get paid that day from your previous balance. That way you basically can see how much money you have over each payperiod.

August 8th

+ $XXX

- $xxx Rent
- $xxx Phone
- $xxx DSL
- $xxx Cable
- $xxx Car Payment
- $xxx Insurance

August 22nd

+ $XXX

- $xxx rent


September 5th

+ $XXX

- $xxx Misc.
- $xxx Misc.


September 19th

+ $XXX

- $xxx rent
- $xxx car
- $xxx sprint

I know this is still a rough draft and it doesnt show your the variable expenses which are gas, food, entertainment etc. But it helps me keep track of the left over money I will have for those variable expenses.



if u do it like this its gonna be like hell to manage.

you should create a columns for monthes (just add notes that mention what date you paid on instead of listing out everytime u pay for something in that month)

Create rows to list out expenses (ie, catagorize them, utlities: pg&e, at&t, comcast, etc)

This way you can compare month to month, some will be higher than others bc some utilties charge every 2/3 monthes instead of one. Take an average after 1 quarter.

Also keep in mind you have property tax, this is a killer that most first time home buyers miss, so they include it in their monthly instead. But for those who don't make sure you budget for this too.

Another tip is to keep your car expenses completely seperate in a different catagory.

If you can figure you make more than you spend, than that's cake.

I usually keep all my receipts including gas, food, and compare them with my credit card bill to ensure everything is accurate. Than populate it into my spreadsheet once a month. Of course if u pay bills on the fly, it doesnt hurt to enter that immediately into your sheet. It really only takes 1 min a day to understand your expenses.

After you know your expenses you can budget.

[pbcstylez]

i have a spreadsheet for all my expenses and my money. its broken down into several tabs, monthyl expenses, daily expenses(credit card & cash), savings & checking accounts(to monitor interest yield and to know what I have in the bank at all times), and car project expenses(seperated by each car I own; this also includes all maintance items/expenses as well as aftermarket crapola)

for those ppl who will actually use this, PM me and i'll foward you a copy of this minus the numbers obviously

[DALAZ_68]

You know what I do to save money?

Buy gallon jugs of bottled water, and cartons of cigarettes... But the gallon jug is a good deal. Especially when its 102 outside and 121 in the building i work... I save on average... 30 dollars a month. i miss smoking...i quite to save up for motor rebuild...ive given up alot of things actually....but man....smoking was probably my favorite... :duh:

[Bubbles]

Budgets are for people who aren't BALLIN!!!!

I sprinkle diamonds on everything I eat.

[downshift_sideways]

I don't use banks. I deal with cash only.

I do however have bank accounts, I try my best to throw in $20 in my savings account for every $100 I make.

Since you have roomates..Your bills will decrease if divided by X amount of roomates.

I don't budget myself tho.

I get money spend money.

Maybe I should look into this.

[Thursday]

Budgets are for people who aren't BALLIN!!!!

I sprinkle diamonds on everything I eat.



annnd sig msg lngth

[ryguy]

a high interest savings account never hurt me before... Online Savings, Online Payment and Online CD Accounts, HSBC Direct (http://www.hsbcdirect.com/) 3.5% for savings and like 2.5% for checking. that's pretty good, even though it's not the 5% it was from last year. 3.5% is still better than nothing.


This is worth looking into, I have and account with HSBC too and it pays a HELL of a lot more interest than a brick and mortar bank. One of the accounts I have there I put in $100 a month into for retirement. I know I'm young, but it's never to early to start saving. I always pay myself first before I budget my money.

[Vision Garage]

Fucking anthony. I know you are really a bum! You coming to socal to get your fruits that you can push up north!

[downshift_sideways]

^Exactly!

I heard them grapefruits is the shit homie.

bahhahaaha.

[Vision Garage]

Your NEXT BIIIIIAAAATTTTCCCHHHHH!!!!

Sell fruit, go to jail | Napa Valley Register (http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2008/05/15/news/local/doc482bd9f5c1af1951468591.txt)

[downshift_sideways]

^^^bahahahahahahahahahhahaahhahahahaha^^^

I see hundreds of them up here daily.

+rep when I can <3

[DUFFM4N]

the wifey manages the money and makes sure all the bills get paid on time, and money gets put away for everything else....call me whipped, but who's doing all the work?...thats right, her...all i gotta do is bring home checks :keke:

[downshift_sideways]

...and lay the pipe...

:keke:

[DUFFM4N]

indeeeeeeeeeeed....life is good right now *sits back in lawn chair w/appleton banana cream rum* *inserts cocktail umbrella* :coolugh:

[NemeGuero]

I'm posting so I can read this later.

[g6civcx]

the wifey manages the money and makes sure all the bills get paid on time, and money gets put away for everything else....call me whipped, but who's doing all the work?...thats right, her...all i gotta do is bring home checks :keke:

I suppose that's one way to look at it. Not the way I would conclude but it is a conclusion.


Controlling finances can be empowering, but it's also a responsibility and a burden.

Prolonging this behaviour can breed deep resentment in the individual spouse who processes all of the finances. If that spouse decides to do something unfavourable, the other spouse is not likely to know at all.

Not something to be taken lightly.


I'm not saying anything about your specific situation, but people who are carefree in household finances have been known to come home with bills that are unpaid for months, their savings drained, and the spouse nowhere to be found.


Trust but verify.

[pbcstylez]

I suppose that's one way to look at it. Not the way I would conclude but it is a conclusion.


Controlling finances can be empowering, but it's also a responsibility and a burden.

Prolonging this behaviour can breed deep resentment in the individual spouse who processes all of the finances. If that spouse decides to do something unfavourable, the other spouse is not likely to know at all.

Not something to be taken lightly.


I'm not saying anything about your specific situation, but people who are carefree in household finances have been known to come home with bills that are unpaid for months, their savings drained, and the spouse nowhere to be found.


Trust but verify.

haha damn... u must've seen somebody go through this huh?

I know I have, thus the reason I control my own finances, even married ppl will tend to seperate their personal finances from their combined/shared finances for that reason altogether.

[g6civcx]

haha damn... u must've seen somebody go through this huh?

I know I have, thus the reason I control my own finances, even married ppl will tend to seperate their personal finances from their combined/shared finances for that reason altogether.

Pop quiz: how much cash and cash equivalents, and how much debt do you have right now?

I say that if you can't answer this question within several thousand dollars or so, you need to have better control of your finances.


A lot of people tend to make a conscious choice to be oblivious of their finances. They either adopt the "you can't take it with you" or the "let someone else deal with it" mentality. Both of these are highly destructive.


Budgeting doesn't mean abstaining from spending altogether. Instead, budgeting means knowing exactly how much to spend without overspending.

If you let someone else handle your finances, you're asking for trouble because they may be making decisions that you wouldn't.


I'm guilty of playing oblivious as well. I can say with 100% certainty that if I knew better before, I would be in much much better shape right now.


I've seen a lot of bad relationships fall out due to financial reasons. Proceed with caution.

[HyperTek]

i need to budget, i always been horrible.. living paycheck to paycheck.. dropping 5 bucks here and there doesnt seem like much, but over a month that shit adds up to a few hundred spent on unnecessary eating, little shit etc..