Do you live on a budget?
 

This year, my resolution is to track even more closely what I spend. Can anyone here share how their system works?

I understand the various 'categories' such as rent, food, insurance, etc. but how do you track all the smaller stuff? do you save your receipts and tally up at the end of the day? seems a little tedious.

I want to use Excel for this. does anyone know of any websites that might help? or will you share how YOUR system works?

When I lived on a budget, I found a very simple way -- pay cash for everything except your regular bills. If you don't have the cash, you can't have it -- easy as pie.

Go to Microsoft on the web. There are a variety of different budget formats.
The family BUDGET is sounding like what you need. The link "budget" will direct you.
I use very little cash and track everything with checks or debit card. My bank provides "online banking" that can be downloaded to Quicken. The it just takes a few minutes to catagorize and reconcile.

We middle class Canada types get sucked dry from every level of government to the tune of 54% of our wages, so there's not much left to budget. That's why I only own one Mercedes, not several. Anyway, my favourite "trick" in budgeting is to make an ANNUAL budget- not weekly or monthly, and try to calculate absolutely everything I can possibly think of that I would spend in a year, because spending is very seasonal in many cases. This is the only way I can truly determine if I'm standing pat, getting behind, or getting ahead (ha! next to impossible in this country.) I also keep a close monthly talley of all my debts every month, so that I can readily see if I'm going more in debt or less in debt each month, and also when I do my annual budget, I can compare my debt total for the current year compared to last year. When I find I'm more in debt, I then take a close look at my spending habits, and try to change them. If I find I'm less in debt, I consider that "getting ahead".

Dave from the North Country

Online bill paying, pay all bills at once, once a month. Take any pocket-fun money as a one time cash payment each month, and if it runs out, TS. Quit eating out a at resturants as much as possible. Move surplus cash out of checking account as quickly as possible, put it in a savings account.

I'm doing the exact same thing right now. For things other than regular bills (auto insurance is actually my only one now; I'm still at home, so no rent/utilities...yet) and special circumstances (such as a truck project), I give myself $150 per month. It's turned me into an outright frugal spender, and I had enough extra at the end of last year that I was finally able to open a savings account. I've even got a small amount set aside to put in an index fund. :cool:

I just hope i can keep this level of discipline as more $$ becomes available...

Budget? Blah. I'm thrifty though, I don't believe in spending $30 on a steak in a steakhouse.

For years I had the policy; hold two jobs. One is for living expenses, one is for playing. I adopted this during graduate school when my wife worked full-time. We lived off her salary and I picked up part time jobs to play on. Kept it going for years afterwards when I worked two jobs and she went to school.
Now my wife is working full time so we live off my salary and save hers, while playing off the income from our rental properties.

It's not a very sophisticated budgeting procedure but its simplicity has worked effectively for us for years.

We either kept separate checking accounts for each function or ran living expense thru a checking account and playing expenses via cash.

In studies, resturants and bars are the number 1 place that people between the age of 21 and 35 throw money away that could easily be saved. Eliminating this one expenditure and putting the money into a mix of growth and conservative mutual funds is one of the surest ways to create a substantial nestegg that will be a huge chunk of change at age 36. Do the math. Figure what you actually spend your disposal income on, and then compound it by 6% from your current age to age 36. You will find the potential for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Take up gourmet cooking as a hobby, and take the cash to the bank.

Right -- the "no debt" thing is good too. It may have taken me a year or two longer than some of my friends to buy my first nice car, but I paid cash for it, and have ever since. Good spending habits start when you're young.

I don't know if I would go index funds in this economy. The US economy is walking a tightrope. Today's news that we not only ran a huge trade deficit of 60 billion, we also saw our EXPORTS drop even tho the dollar is cheap as dirt, is bad news. If these chickens ever come home to roost, those indexes are going to tank if you are in all-US stocks. Buy indexes when you see real strength in the stock market. Right now, if I was just starting out, I would consider a conservative mutual if I only had a limited amount of money to pack away each month. Fidelity Puritan is a good one, but there are plenty others. Keep it there until you get a sizable nest egg, to the point you can diversify in three or four investments in $2,000 chunks, and then get into the risky stuff.

I agree. It isn't so much careful budgeting as it is adopting a different way of life. Be disciplined about the bills you pay, and review what you are paying for each month so you can eliminate things you don't really need. Learn to suffer a little. Interest payments are a total waste of money on just about everything except for a house. Accelerate car payments, better yet, sell the car and buy a used car for cash. Avoid using store cards like the plague.

I've been thinking of getting one of those credit card which pays you cashback at the end of the year. I really really think I could use one of those cards. I figure we spend about $600/month on gas/food alone. Then there's tires, oilchanges, etc. I'm just afraid those cards will become like the one ring in LOTR. I might be tempted to use it a lot!

What he said................learned that a number of years ago. I live by that method. Has served me well.

Checks are cash..............Pay all bills when they arrive....carry over NO debts to the next month except the mortgage....

when you use credit cards .....and you should to keep credit good, pay bills 100 as soon as they arrive.

Credit cards are great if you have the discipline to pay by the due date. How many people actually do?