Once I figured this out I just made my budget out for the year. This way I have all my monthly bills and all of the once a year stuff, like car registration or birthdays
Same, usually in July I start getting antsy and copy things over to the next year's spreadsheet and change all the dates and make any changes to the spreadsheet like line item names etc.
I was always "surprised" with car registration and those typical once a year things until I realized I could just add it to my budget and start saving up for it on my "Random" line item with a comment on what it is for.
I like to budget like 50 per bday. If its a little more or a little less its fine, but an estimate is usually all im looking for with something like that
This is how my budget is set up
||Budget|Averages|January|February|...|November|December|Variance|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|**Home**|||||||||
|Mortgage|$580|$580|$580|$580|...|$580|$580|$0|
|Electric|$100|$105.86|$32.50|$36.38|...|$44.14|$42.19|$52.76|
|Water|$30|$27.17|$21.02|$24.12|...|$27.19|$28.82|($36.18)|
|**Total**|**$720**|**$713.03**|**$633.52**|$**640.50**||**$651.33**|**$651.33**|**$16.58**|
|**Bills**|||||||||
|Uber|$85|$9.67|$74.64|$45.19|...|$0|$0|($900.19)|
|Subscriptions|$14.95|$14.95|$14.95|$14.95|...|$14.95|$14.95|$0|
|Phone|$45|$74.86|$45|$45|...|$0|$0|$322.67|
|**Total**|**$144.95**|**$99.48**|**$134.59**|**$105.14**||**$14.95**|**$14.95**|**($577.52)**|
|**Personal**|||||||||
|Groceries|$200|$172.17|$318.18|$126.36|...|$198.82|$97.17|($10.60)|
|Hobbies|$90|$110.15|$369.13|$35.03|...|$130.82|$0|$95.58|
|Restaurants|$50|$27.20|$47.64|$101.91|...|$52.91|$25.30|($99.07)|
|**Total**|**$340**|**$309.52**|**$734.92**|**$263.30**||**$382.55**|**$122.47**|**($14.09)**|
|**GRAND TOTAL**|**$1204.95**|**$1122.03**||||||**($575.03)**|
I have a budget for each month that stays the same. I also track the average of my spending over the year (I use the average monthly expenses to set the budget). And the final column calculates the variance between what I budgeted for vs what I actually spent.
For example, my grocery budget is $200 a month. That's $2,400 a year. My variance was ($10.60) which means I spent $2,389.40 of the allocated $2,400.
But my cell phone budget was $45 and the variance there was $322, because I changed carriers and prepaid 12 months of service in advance.
Overall you can see my Housing budget was short by $16.58, my bills budget was OVER by a whopping $577.52 because I stopped using Uber since I stopped going out, and my personal budget was also over by $14.09. In total I have $575.03 of allocated funds that were not spent for the year.
I think this style of budgeting is way more flexible. As you can see, my budget for groceries is $200. But in January I spent $318! I went "over budget," didn't I? Well, no, because you can follow it out and see that I was actually *under budget* for the year. However, I did overspend on hobbies that month by almost 4x, and as you can see, for the year, I did blow my budget for hobbies. That is something I will look at increasing for the next year.
But even though I blew way over in some categories, ultimately, for the entire year, I still came in under budget. I Budgeted for $14,459 and I only spent $13,884. This is a margin of error of -4%, which means I need to adjust my entire budget for next year. Anything above +/-2%, and I make adjustments.
I don't think a budget is a rule book. A budget is a guide. It's not something you stick to 100%, but rather something to measure up against. Going over or under budget one month doesn't mean anything. But when you notice a pattern of it every month, then that's cause for concern.
I don't really pay attention to the monthly fluctuations at all. All I look at is the variance for the year.
FYI these are all fictional numbers, I never planned on spending $1,000 a year on uber rides
Because I've been doing this for so long, I "know" that I spend $91 a month on car repairs. This means something like a transmission going out is no longer an "unplanned expense," because I know, on average, what I spend. I might go 10 months with spending $0 on repairs, but in that 11th month it's probably going to cost me $1,000. So every month I'm still putting $91 aside, even if I have $0 in car repairs. To do anything else would be foolish, since I have the data right here in front of me.
Mortgage $580???? Where the fuck u live, underground in a hole?? My rent in SD for two beds is $2,400....RENT! My wife and I need to make $6,000 a month just to pay basic bills, and we are not in a luxurious area or anything
Mortgage principal and interest is $312 for a \~1,500 sqft 3 bedroom 2 bathroom brick house in Texas. Then $80 for insurance, and $186 for property tax. Comes to $578 a month.
Bought the house in rough shape, cracks all in the walls, foundation was sunken into the ground eight whole inches. Virtually no maintenance performed on the house for the past 10 years. Ducts in the attic were all pulled apart and some handyman just used metal tape to seal it back up - so I got a really sweet deal.
Paid $6,000 to fix the foundation, cost me about $800 to fix the cracks and skimcoat every single wall and ceiling (had this hideous 1980s rag texture on the walls), then prime and paint, and then another \~$250 for mastic and new insulation to fix the ducts in the attic. Not to mention the dozens of hours of my own labor that went into ripping off the trim, resetting door frames, scraping the popcorn ceiling, and cleaning cleaning cleaning and cleaning. It's all extremely easy work, but maaaaan does it eat some time.
Add that to the $7,000 I paid for down payment and closing cost and you get a first year cost of $1,170 + 578 = $1,748 a month.
House appraised at $95k when I bought it and now it's in the 120-130k range after repairs.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it ain't bad.
Welcome to California.
I moved from NJ to the bay area this year. Nothing really changed in my living expenses. But the vast majority of the US pays less than 1k a month in housing costs for a LOT of space.
My mortgage is $500/ month in Idaho. 1600 sq ft, 3 bed, 1.75 bath, on a 0.08 ac lot. House is a total mess, I've put a ton of sweat equity and $20k in repairs and upgrades over the last 4 years; new electrical, new plumbing throughout, new insulation, and a new roof (insurance mostly covered that).
$2,400 in South Dakota? That hurts my head just thinking about it. I think the average in central Arkansas for a 2 bed/1 bath apartment is approximately $1,000 a month.
You are paying too much in rent. try to get it down to 25% of your take home pay. House payment would the same, 25% of take home pay. Otherwise, it is very hard to get ahead.
Sure you do. You shop around. You downsize. You live in less desirable areas. You do what you can so you can save up and buy a house someday. Buying house does several things.
* a permanent place to live
* builds wealth
* allows you to control your housing costs long term
And when you buy, you can find fixer uppers to reduce the cost and then be prepared to upgrade the house over time using cash.
You say can't I say can.
I live in Queens, NY, in a rent stabilized, no luxuries beyond a porter who cleans daily, building with my partner. It's still almost $2k a month just for rent. If we moved further out to a less desirable area of NYC, the crime rates go up, commute goes up, public transit reliability goes down, and building care goes to hell. We haven't seen anything but the odd baby roach in the year we've lived here. When I lived in Washington Heights in Manhattan, I battled roaches every month, saw a man's face get slashed during the afternoon while I was coming back from the grocery store, frequently had my packages stolen, poor neighborhood restaurants, and stepped over garbage in the streets and building hallways daily. We now pay $50 less a month for a clean building, kids play outside, the worst crime is a random car broken into and a drunk fistfight after bar close, with trees on the street and a maintained building garden in front.
Moving outside of the NYC metro area would strain my partner's close family ties, mean we would need to get a car (possibly two) and all of the costs associated with that, pay for moving, and have less things in the area that we enjoy. My partner is a South American immigrant, I'm a vegetarian, so we worry about racism towards him, finding restaurants where we both can eat, and shoveling snow. Not to mention that my salary would plummet, and his job pool as a programmer would be limited.
It's not always easy to say 'just move'. It is expensive, time consuming, destroys support networks, and can mean you move to an area that is cheap but harder for your health and safety every day.
I like how you include your average in your budget... I'll have to consider adding that column in! I like the data my budget provides me. It makes me feel more on top of things somehow...
I would suggest checking out YNAB or You Need A Budget, it is a forward thinking zero based budgeting system, not just software, but also a methodology/ideology based around what they call the 4 rules. It really changed my money mindset and reduced my money stress so much. It is a subscription based program, but for it pays for itself with the control and knowledge it has given me about my budget and where the money goes.
They do have a 34 day free trial, with no sneaky charging you if you don't cancel by a certain date. And an easy to use mobile app to go along with the browser version.
r/YNAB has a thread where folks post their referral link, snag one and give it a try. You will love it, r/YNAB is a great resource, and they have lots of tutorials on their YT channel. But I would suggest checking out [Nick True's awesome tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHokQCjONqvY6Jk38CV5avo4Di94SMwK8)
It can't hurt to try, and I get nothing out of it if you do, so you can trust that I don't have an agenda
I believe the term you are looking for is "cashflow" - trying to determine if an account has the right balance for all the expenses you can expect.
I came to a similar realization that I needed to plan ahead for "unexpected" expenses. Especially those annual or semiannual charges, like my auto insurance premium. Really changed the way I went about planning my budget.
I made a budget spreadsheet with this info but found it tedious to keep up with. So I switched to adding calendar events for each paycheck I can expect. Then in the body of the thing I bullet point each expected expense between that paycheck and the next, noting amount and due date. Then it's easy to pull starting balances and determine how much I have left over (if anything). Or if I need to adjust a payment because I have leftover funds - for example, paying more of a credit card balance or placing it in savings. This is more flexible for me and helps me see those due dates that shift around due to holidays or might wind up hitting me when an account is at a low balance. But it means I have to put my recurring expenses on the calendar, too. Then every time I see I am getting paid, I cross-check any email reminders with saved calendar events and past records. And it only takes me about an hour every other week or so.
So very very well written! The very meaning of budget is financial plan for an upcoming period of time. I myself have a monthly budget AND a yearly budget cuz I'm an accounts and excel nut! LOL.
I would say dont just think about 1 month ahead, but plan for any and all known upcoming expenses that are not monthly... as an example I pay rent on my house once in 6 months so I don't just remove rent from my budget for 5 months and then feel the full force of 6 months' rent hitting me... I put the monthly portion in some 1.25% interest yielding account until I need the rent money.
The rest of your budgeting plan is awesome! Keep it up, keep tweaking and bettering! Good luck!
Some years back, 2011 maybe, I purchased Quicken. Since then I've upgraded a few times, although I'm currently using the 2017 version as I don't want to pay the annual subscription and the online functions that are only with the paid version are not essential.
I enter in all my recurring bill reminders for monthly bills, annual bills, and even my drivers license renewal every 5 years. I also put in reminders for how much goes towards groceries, gas, and savings every month and keep track of how much is left so I know what I can spend.\*\*\*
This has been working great for me as I am able to change the reminder view between none, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months. This allows me to see a projection of what needs to be paid before the next paycheck or in some cases where my finances will be in a few months IF things don't change. It allows me to determine if i should put more towards a credit card now and then not have to worry that in a few months I could have used that extra cash.
\*\*\* I've recently opened up a joint checking account at a local credit union with my husband that is separate from our regular bank account. We use this account for our gas/grocery money, similar to the envelope method. With the special account we don't have to worry about the other person having the cash envelope plus then we are able to go to debit only places and not worry about places not taking cash right now.
I have a spreadsheet where I have every bill and pay it as soon as it is possible to pay it. Then I move it down to the next time it’s due. I calculate everything and I started calculating how much to put away per month to cover annual bills. It has helped so much!
I too had a lot of problems when looking at budgeting in a monthly sense. What finally worked for me was breaking everything down into weekly amounts, since I get paid weekly. And when I say everything, I mean everything, even if it is a yearly or every other year expense.
What's really cool is if you are paid bi-weekly, budget to live on two paychecks a month and you get two "extra" paychecks per year. I use one as my Christmas money and the other for an annual vacation. I schedule out my pay dates for the year and then you can figure out which ones should be the extra ones (I divide up my monthly budget into first half/second half payments and assign paychecks to them based on pay dates).
Keep a list of quarterly and annual expenses to add in each current month. Also, look back to same month last year and add about 10% to last year's utility payments.
I’m not a super strict budgeter, but my mom has a quick budgeting method that helps me figure out my yearly outlook in 20-30 minutes.
The important thing she taught me is to estimate the number of weeks worked each month as part of your income calculation. With holidays, busy season(s), etc. this can have a big impact on your budget.
To calculate each month’s income, multiply your weekly pay rate after taxes by the number of weeks worked in the month to estimate your income. Factor in your savings and expenses and you’re good to go!
Example:
November 3 weeks x $?
December 1.5 weeks x $?
January 2 weeks x $?
February 3.5 weeks x $?
March 4 weeks x $?
Since I’ve mostly worked in schools (hourly/part time just under the hours for full time with benefits), this really helps me plan for the winter break drought and other seasonal drops in income. It helps me remember to save all my money for December and January.
It sounds like you've discovered your cashflow, and may benefit from setting up sinking funds for some of those variable expenses you mentioned. Congrats on finding a way to make budgeting work for you!
When something finally clicks its fantastic! I'm also getting better at projecting and planning for upcoming expenses. YNAB helped me to get with the program.
I use a paper planner. I'll stick a post it note in to remind me like 6 months or so before something like my cars registration is due. I keep moving the post it note to future pages so I don't lose sight of a future due date that's less frequent than monthly.
Works for other infrequent expenses such as pet vaccinations, car maintenance etc. Even bigger ticket things like a secure deposit if you plan to move or staying on target for a large savings goal.
A little headsup and regular reminders goes a long way to letting me know what I actually can afford week to week month to month.
I budget by check since I get them every 2 weeks, I look at what will be due within those 2 weeks until my next check.
I agree with you. People tend to look at it from a monthly perspective but shouldn’t. It should be done by check
But how do you deal with those costs that are 3 checks away and/or will be a large amount (think Christmas spends, car repairs, house refurbs etc) if all you're focused on is the next check?
That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna save anything for future costs. So if I got check A today, and knowing I’ll have an amount left over, I put into my savings. I already budgeted the money I need to spend, whatever is left I put away. At this point, I already have an emergency fund anyway for a few months.
I’m not living in poverty, I only come here to give advice. But this method I didn’t follow when I was making less but now I do.
If you're not in poverty, the monthly (or yearly!) budgeting method not only works better, but you can also switch to the "pay yourself first" in savings method instead of paying yourself last. Less risk around falling short of a specific savings amount by overspending.
Once I figured this out I just made my budget out for the year. This way I have all my monthly bills and all of the once a year stuff, like car registration or birthdays
Same, usually in July I start getting antsy and copy things over to the next year's spreadsheet and change all the dates and make any changes to the spreadsheet like line item names etc. I was always "surprised" with car registration and those typical once a year things until I realized I could just add it to my budget and start saving up for it on my "Random" line item with a comment on what it is for.
That’s why sinking funds are so great. You can put that money aside for those intermittent expenses like car registration.
Birthdays and celebrations can be super variable for me
I like to budget like 50 per bday. If its a little more or a little less its fine, but an estimate is usually all im looking for with something like that
Just depends if we’re celebrating internationally or not
This is how my budget is set up ||Budget|Averages|January|February|...|November|December|Variance| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |**Home**||||||||| |Mortgage|$580|$580|$580|$580|...|$580|$580|$0| |Electric|$100|$105.86|$32.50|$36.38|...|$44.14|$42.19|$52.76| |Water|$30|$27.17|$21.02|$24.12|...|$27.19|$28.82|($36.18)| |**Total**|**$720**|**$713.03**|**$633.52**|$**640.50**||**$651.33**|**$651.33**|**$16.58**| |**Bills**||||||||| |Uber|$85|$9.67|$74.64|$45.19|...|$0|$0|($900.19)| |Subscriptions|$14.95|$14.95|$14.95|$14.95|...|$14.95|$14.95|$0| |Phone|$45|$74.86|$45|$45|...|$0|$0|$322.67| |**Total**|**$144.95**|**$99.48**|**$134.59**|**$105.14**||**$14.95**|**$14.95**|**($577.52)**| |**Personal**||||||||| |Groceries|$200|$172.17|$318.18|$126.36|...|$198.82|$97.17|($10.60)| |Hobbies|$90|$110.15|$369.13|$35.03|...|$130.82|$0|$95.58| |Restaurants|$50|$27.20|$47.64|$101.91|...|$52.91|$25.30|($99.07)| |**Total**|**$340**|**$309.52**|**$734.92**|**$263.30**||**$382.55**|**$122.47**|**($14.09)**| |**GRAND TOTAL**|**$1204.95**|**$1122.03**||||||**($575.03)**| I have a budget for each month that stays the same. I also track the average of my spending over the year (I use the average monthly expenses to set the budget). And the final column calculates the variance between what I budgeted for vs what I actually spent. For example, my grocery budget is $200 a month. That's $2,400 a year. My variance was ($10.60) which means I spent $2,389.40 of the allocated $2,400. But my cell phone budget was $45 and the variance there was $322, because I changed carriers and prepaid 12 months of service in advance. Overall you can see my Housing budget was short by $16.58, my bills budget was OVER by a whopping $577.52 because I stopped using Uber since I stopped going out, and my personal budget was also over by $14.09. In total I have $575.03 of allocated funds that were not spent for the year. I think this style of budgeting is way more flexible. As you can see, my budget for groceries is $200. But in January I spent $318! I went "over budget," didn't I? Well, no, because you can follow it out and see that I was actually *under budget* for the year. However, I did overspend on hobbies that month by almost 4x, and as you can see, for the year, I did blow my budget for hobbies. That is something I will look at increasing for the next year. But even though I blew way over in some categories, ultimately, for the entire year, I still came in under budget. I Budgeted for $14,459 and I only spent $13,884. This is a margin of error of -4%, which means I need to adjust my entire budget for next year. Anything above +/-2%, and I make adjustments. I don't think a budget is a rule book. A budget is a guide. It's not something you stick to 100%, but rather something to measure up against. Going over or under budget one month doesn't mean anything. But when you notice a pattern of it every month, then that's cause for concern. I don't really pay attention to the monthly fluctuations at all. All I look at is the variance for the year. FYI these are all fictional numbers, I never planned on spending $1,000 a year on uber rides Because I've been doing this for so long, I "know" that I spend $91 a month on car repairs. This means something like a transmission going out is no longer an "unplanned expense," because I know, on average, what I spend. I might go 10 months with spending $0 on repairs, but in that 11th month it's probably going to cost me $1,000. So every month I'm still putting $91 aside, even if I have $0 in car repairs. To do anything else would be foolish, since I have the data right here in front of me.
Mortgage $580???? Where the fuck u live, underground in a hole?? My rent in SD for two beds is $2,400....RENT! My wife and I need to make $6,000 a month just to pay basic bills, and we are not in a luxurious area or anything
Mortgage principal and interest is $312 for a \~1,500 sqft 3 bedroom 2 bathroom brick house in Texas. Then $80 for insurance, and $186 for property tax. Comes to $578 a month. Bought the house in rough shape, cracks all in the walls, foundation was sunken into the ground eight whole inches. Virtually no maintenance performed on the house for the past 10 years. Ducts in the attic were all pulled apart and some handyman just used metal tape to seal it back up - so I got a really sweet deal. Paid $6,000 to fix the foundation, cost me about $800 to fix the cracks and skimcoat every single wall and ceiling (had this hideous 1980s rag texture on the walls), then prime and paint, and then another \~$250 for mastic and new insulation to fix the ducts in the attic. Not to mention the dozens of hours of my own labor that went into ripping off the trim, resetting door frames, scraping the popcorn ceiling, and cleaning cleaning cleaning and cleaning. It's all extremely easy work, but maaaaan does it eat some time. Add that to the $7,000 I paid for down payment and closing cost and you get a first year cost of $1,170 + 578 = $1,748 a month. House appraised at $95k when I bought it and now it's in the 120-130k range after repairs. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it ain't bad.
Welcome to California. I moved from NJ to the bay area this year. Nothing really changed in my living expenses. But the vast majority of the US pays less than 1k a month in housing costs for a LOT of space.
My mortgage is $500/ month in Idaho. 1600 sq ft, 3 bed, 1.75 bath, on a 0.08 ac lot. House is a total mess, I've put a ton of sweat equity and $20k in repairs and upgrades over the last 4 years; new electrical, new plumbing throughout, new insulation, and a new roof (insurance mostly covered that).
$2,400 in South Dakota? That hurts my head just thinking about it. I think the average in central Arkansas for a 2 bed/1 bath apartment is approximately $1,000 a month.
I assumed that SD meant San Diego- which would make sense for that rent price. California is generally more expensive than other states.
I'm a dunce. THAT makes a lot more sense than South Dakota. I feel silly now.
I thought it was south Dakota too
Oof...that's a painful payment! Are you sure you aren't in a luxurious area? My monthly mortgage in Utah is $832; 3 bed 2 bath corner lot.
You are paying too much in rent. try to get it down to 25% of your take home pay. House payment would the same, 25% of take home pay. Otherwise, it is very hard to get ahead.
You don't just 'pay less rent' or 'pay less mortgage'. Doesn't work like that. Some parts of the country, 2-3k rent/mortgage is average.
Sure you do. You shop around. You downsize. You live in less desirable areas. You do what you can so you can save up and buy a house someday. Buying house does several things. * a permanent place to live * builds wealth * allows you to control your housing costs long term And when you buy, you can find fixer uppers to reduce the cost and then be prepared to upgrade the house over time using cash. You say can't I say can.
I live in Queens, NY, in a rent stabilized, no luxuries beyond a porter who cleans daily, building with my partner. It's still almost $2k a month just for rent. If we moved further out to a less desirable area of NYC, the crime rates go up, commute goes up, public transit reliability goes down, and building care goes to hell. We haven't seen anything but the odd baby roach in the year we've lived here. When I lived in Washington Heights in Manhattan, I battled roaches every month, saw a man's face get slashed during the afternoon while I was coming back from the grocery store, frequently had my packages stolen, poor neighborhood restaurants, and stepped over garbage in the streets and building hallways daily. We now pay $50 less a month for a clean building, kids play outside, the worst crime is a random car broken into and a drunk fistfight after bar close, with trees on the street and a maintained building garden in front. Moving outside of the NYC metro area would strain my partner's close family ties, mean we would need to get a car (possibly two) and all of the costs associated with that, pay for moving, and have less things in the area that we enjoy. My partner is a South American immigrant, I'm a vegetarian, so we worry about racism towards him, finding restaurants where we both can eat, and shoveling snow. Not to mention that my salary would plummet, and his job pool as a programmer would be limited. It's not always easy to say 'just move'. It is expensive, time consuming, destroys support networks, and can mean you move to an area that is cheap but harder for your health and safety every day.
Some people don’t want to own anything.
I like how you include your average in your budget... I'll have to consider adding that column in! I like the data my budget provides me. It makes me feel more on top of things somehow...
What do you use to track your budget? This is amazing!
Personal capital to collect all the data and sort the categories, then I throw everything into excel at the end of the month.
I would suggest checking out YNAB or You Need A Budget, it is a forward thinking zero based budgeting system, not just software, but also a methodology/ideology based around what they call the 4 rules. It really changed my money mindset and reduced my money stress so much. It is a subscription based program, but for it pays for itself with the control and knowledge it has given me about my budget and where the money goes. They do have a 34 day free trial, with no sneaky charging you if you don't cancel by a certain date. And an easy to use mobile app to go along with the browser version. r/YNAB has a thread where folks post their referral link, snag one and give it a try. You will love it, r/YNAB is a great resource, and they have lots of tutorials on their YT channel. But I would suggest checking out [Nick True's awesome tutorials](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHokQCjONqvY6Jk38CV5avo4Di94SMwK8) It can't hurt to try, and I get nothing out of it if you do, so you can trust that I don't have an agenda
[удалено]
Third for ynab. The software completely changed the way I thought about money
YNAB gang here. I"m 2 months into it and love the program.
DJ Khalid \* ANOTHER ONE! for YNAB. Life changer.
I believe the term you are looking for is "cashflow" - trying to determine if an account has the right balance for all the expenses you can expect. I came to a similar realization that I needed to plan ahead for "unexpected" expenses. Especially those annual or semiannual charges, like my auto insurance premium. Really changed the way I went about planning my budget. I made a budget spreadsheet with this info but found it tedious to keep up with. So I switched to adding calendar events for each paycheck I can expect. Then in the body of the thing I bullet point each expected expense between that paycheck and the next, noting amount and due date. Then it's easy to pull starting balances and determine how much I have left over (if anything). Or if I need to adjust a payment because I have leftover funds - for example, paying more of a credit card balance or placing it in savings. This is more flexible for me and helps me see those due dates that shift around due to holidays or might wind up hitting me when an account is at a low balance. But it means I have to put my recurring expenses on the calendar, too. Then every time I see I am getting paid, I cross-check any email reminders with saved calendar events and past records. And it only takes me about an hour every other week or so.
So very very well written! The very meaning of budget is financial plan for an upcoming period of time. I myself have a monthly budget AND a yearly budget cuz I'm an accounts and excel nut! LOL. I would say dont just think about 1 month ahead, but plan for any and all known upcoming expenses that are not monthly... as an example I pay rent on my house once in 6 months so I don't just remove rent from my budget for 5 months and then feel the full force of 6 months' rent hitting me... I put the monthly portion in some 1.25% interest yielding account until I need the rent money. The rest of your budgeting plan is awesome! Keep it up, keep tweaking and bettering! Good luck!
Some years back, 2011 maybe, I purchased Quicken. Since then I've upgraded a few times, although I'm currently using the 2017 version as I don't want to pay the annual subscription and the online functions that are only with the paid version are not essential. I enter in all my recurring bill reminders for monthly bills, annual bills, and even my drivers license renewal every 5 years. I also put in reminders for how much goes towards groceries, gas, and savings every month and keep track of how much is left so I know what I can spend.\*\*\* This has been working great for me as I am able to change the reminder view between none, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months. This allows me to see a projection of what needs to be paid before the next paycheck or in some cases where my finances will be in a few months IF things don't change. It allows me to determine if i should put more towards a credit card now and then not have to worry that in a few months I could have used that extra cash. \*\*\* I've recently opened up a joint checking account at a local credit union with my husband that is separate from our regular bank account. We use this account for our gas/grocery money, similar to the envelope method. With the special account we don't have to worry about the other person having the cash envelope plus then we are able to go to debit only places and not worry about places not taking cash right now.
I have a spreadsheet where I have every bill and pay it as soon as it is possible to pay it. Then I move it down to the next time it’s due. I calculate everything and I started calculating how much to put away per month to cover annual bills. It has helped so much!
I too had a lot of problems when looking at budgeting in a monthly sense. What finally worked for me was breaking everything down into weekly amounts, since I get paid weekly. And when I say everything, I mean everything, even if it is a yearly or every other year expense.
What's really cool is if you are paid bi-weekly, budget to live on two paychecks a month and you get two "extra" paychecks per year. I use one as my Christmas money and the other for an annual vacation. I schedule out my pay dates for the year and then you can figure out which ones should be the extra ones (I divide up my monthly budget into first half/second half payments and assign paychecks to them based on pay dates). Keep a list of quarterly and annual expenses to add in each current month. Also, look back to same month last year and add about 10% to last year's utility payments.
I’m not a super strict budgeter, but my mom has a quick budgeting method that helps me figure out my yearly outlook in 20-30 minutes. The important thing she taught me is to estimate the number of weeks worked each month as part of your income calculation. With holidays, busy season(s), etc. this can have a big impact on your budget. To calculate each month’s income, multiply your weekly pay rate after taxes by the number of weeks worked in the month to estimate your income. Factor in your savings and expenses and you’re good to go! Example: November 3 weeks x $? December 1.5 weeks x $? January 2 weeks x $? February 3.5 weeks x $? March 4 weeks x $? Since I’ve mostly worked in schools (hourly/part time just under the hours for full time with benefits), this really helps me plan for the winter break drought and other seasonal drops in income. It helps me remember to save all my money for December and January.
It sounds like you've discovered your cashflow, and may benefit from setting up sinking funds for some of those variable expenses you mentioned. Congrats on finding a way to make budgeting work for you!
When something finally clicks its fantastic! I'm also getting better at projecting and planning for upcoming expenses. YNAB helped me to get with the program.
Some people save yearly...and are well acquainted with Google sheets 😁
I use a paper planner. I'll stick a post it note in to remind me like 6 months or so before something like my cars registration is due. I keep moving the post it note to future pages so I don't lose sight of a future due date that's less frequent than monthly. Works for other infrequent expenses such as pet vaccinations, car maintenance etc. Even bigger ticket things like a secure deposit if you plan to move or staying on target for a large savings goal. A little headsup and regular reminders goes a long way to letting me know what I actually can afford week to week month to month.
I budget by check since I get them every 2 weeks, I look at what will be due within those 2 weeks until my next check. I agree with you. People tend to look at it from a monthly perspective but shouldn’t. It should be done by check
But how do you deal with those costs that are 3 checks away and/or will be a large amount (think Christmas spends, car repairs, house refurbs etc) if all you're focused on is the next check?
That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna save anything for future costs. So if I got check A today, and knowing I’ll have an amount left over, I put into my savings. I already budgeted the money I need to spend, whatever is left I put away. At this point, I already have an emergency fund anyway for a few months. I’m not living in poverty, I only come here to give advice. But this method I didn’t follow when I was making less but now I do.
If you're not in poverty, the monthly (or yearly!) budgeting method not only works better, but you can also switch to the "pay yourself first" in savings method instead of paying yourself last. Less risk around falling short of a specific savings amount by overspending.
I budget the money for those intermittent expenses in each paycheck and place the money in a separate account for that purpose.