Do you have a family budget?

[Kathy]

You've heard from experts that the key to financial management is creating a budget and sticking to it.

Do you have a family budget? Do you plan today for the broken car next month? If you use a budget, what tools/resources do you use to manage it?

[Sofina]

Hi Kathy,
We have used Larry Burkett's Financial Planning Workbook for years. It got us started and then over the years we fashioned our own budget sheets from his examples. I used the category examples he used with just a little bit of tweaking. We are paid twice every month so I designed our budget sheets splitting the monthly expenses so we could see what the regular expenses are for each half and then fill in the blanks for any variable things that come up.
We have quite a few things that are deducted automatically so those expenses I have typed in on the sheets so they are already there. I don't have to redo them each payday. We have a salary that fluctuates so I work on averages with money that goes automatically into two savings accounts each payday. If we have a half where we come up short all I have to do is go to the savings for what we need.
I also use online banking. I can move money between accounts with ease. I don't even have to leave the house. I can also keep track of our expenditures. We use our debit cards a lot now, but I just print out the sheet every day if I need to so we don't lose track of where we are in our budget.
This is a been a long process. We have had to work over the years to develop what will work for us. We have also used Larry Burkett's system of cash in the envelopes. He has a little container(can't remember what he calls it) that you can keep cash for each category in your budget. We found at different stages of our lives that we needed the added help of this control. When the envelope is empty you know you have to stop spending.
I would love to hear what works for others.
Hugs, Rita( Sofina)

[djortega]

yes we do but i dont use any specific program. i just plan it out on paper.

[jones74]

For the new year I want to plan a budget that I can stick to. I remember years ago I used a pc program. I can't remember what it was but it used color graphs and things like that.

I have not decided yet which pc program to get yet.

Any suggestions??

Thanks
Carla

[drake4]

We just now got on the ball and started to plan. We have to move in august and I have to save now or we'll be in big trouble.

[chickadee]

I have been budgeting for 6 years now. Everything organized in a 3 ring binder, with a monthly sheet for what is due when and a check off for when i pay it. My main problem is the basic expenses is slightly more than my income. any unexpected expense, like my surgery last year, really throws everything in to the red.

[sagespot]

I have to admit it - I'm a die hard Quicken user. I find it so easy to plan and budget for emergencies by using the tools in the program.

I'm big on things that multi-task, so having software that estimates my annual and monthly budgets based upon my previous expenses works really well for our finances.

Additionally, I like being able to run reports on how much we've spent on different subjects (like: auto repairs, medicines, and household goods.) It allows me to plan for the increase needed in the next year's budget.

Sage

[Kim308pl]

I do not have a budget, do not know how to make one and well I really need one...lol.

I do use MS money, do they have a budget thingy in there. We so need one. There for awhile our debits were more than income, but now we are abot even, , trying to get the income to be more. But boy do I need a budget someone.

Kim

[Sofina]

(((Kim)))
MS Money does have a place where you can do budgeting I believe. We have it and tried to use it once. I found Quicken to be more user friendly, but.... my confession is that I failed Quicken and MS Money. It was just too labor intensive for me. When I'm on the computer I have better(funner) things to do and I found I just hate entering all that info and then I would fall behind and feel quilty. It was a vicious circle for me. Now I have us on a budget and I don't have the guilt of knowing I didn't enter every single expenditure into my Quicken program.
It is wonderful in theory, but just didn't work for this scatter brained housewife.
Good luck, you can do this. Look at your personality and do what works for you. You can start with a piece of notebook paper and just start by writing down all the different things you spend money on. In the beginning I would try to assign percentages of our income to the different categories of spending like Auto,Housing,Ins,Recreation,Food,clothing, etc. when I ran out of money I could see where I needed to adjust the amounts I was allowing for each catetory. When there was a large bill due we wouldn't buy any new clothes for instance.
As you start writing it down you'll begin to see the picture of your spending habits. If you have a lot of debt eating up your monthly income you see real quickly you need to take care of that too. I hope you do well and will see it through. You won't be sorry.

[PositivelyMental]

Kathy,

You might look into the "Financial Peace" program by Dave Ramsey. Its a program that helps you prioritize your budget according to your goals with a concentration on paying off debt.

Might consider looking in to it.

[Kim308pl]

Thanks, I did find the budgget program in Money and started it...but I too, get in the sequence of not enering thing in, then I get behind nad then have 3 months to catch up on, by that time I have found mistakes...

Iknow we have wasted alot of money over the past few months in overdraft charges, the checkbook got way out of hand and I could not work hard enought o catch it up. I think we have had over 1200 in overdraft charges, which of couse out us in the cycle of being late, or paying and the having more overdraft chares. I thinkt he last of hte charges took place last week. We are to get our taxes in. We need to catch up on the car payment, 3 months behind, the house we are on a payment plan, hopefully I can catch up with taxes and still have enough left to fix 3 abscese teeth.

[janie44]

We got out of debt last year and have our emergency fund in savings. We follow the Dave Ramsey program, Financial Peace. We are just getting a budget going and it's a real struggle for me. I'm used to buying what ever when the mood strikes if I have the money. (No credit cards here!) But I think in the end it will be worth the struggle!

[lilorphann]

I have never seen the need for a budget here; we have great savings and retirement all worked out and I have decided that I can't take it with me when I die so I tend to enjoy and spend alot shopping and eating out (I do not cook at all) yet everything is paid and no one goes without. I applaude those who are able to live on a budget.

[Melislite]

I myself live on a very fixed income...so there is not much to budget!! But I do keep everything I spend in a notebook even a cup of coffee out is written down!!I went through a period of 4 months without any income...my savings were used up the first 2 months then I had yard sales to have the basics. I think the secret to any budget is to stick to it and never think about living beyond your means!! I also save alot of money on many household & daily use items by going for Freebies coupons & just common sense!!

[Digitizingqueen]

OK, so I made my own budget keep track of everything in Excel, including savings and such, the only issue I have is my electric/ gas and water bill vary month to month, and because I just bought a new house I have to wait at least a year for the equal payment plan... I know when my car needs maintenqace and I know when my taxes are due and registration and have a ball park of how much... school is currently taking a lot of my extra funds but I buget teh same ammount each month for the crdit card I have and of course my car payment....and cable/phoen and insurence are the same...

[shannanigans]

Budgeting is key! Though I used to be such a shop-a-holic... my dh now only allows me to get 1 designer handbag.. [max value: $1200] -- which i agree with - we try to manage our $$ accordingly. Granted my husband and I both have amazing jobs and are so young - he is almost 30 and i just turned 27.. we've been able to manage our $$ enough to live a healthy, comfortable lifestyle.

[used2bpink]

My husband and I first began budgeting with the aid of a financial counselor and Larry Burkette's program. We were completely out of debt, but still had no real savings when my husband quit his job (I was 9 months pregnant with our 3rd child at the time--talk about scary!) to start his own business.

We lived off credit cards for a year before the business really kicked in well. That was nearly 10 years ago.

Now that we have a successful business and five kids, we found we had a new problem: enough money, but somewhere we forgot to budget. Since I am a SAHM and homeschooling, it seems that all of the variable expenses in our home are ones that I take care of (ie: groceries, clothing, home decorating, haircuts, homeschooling needs, and so on). It also seemed that without a budget, we tended to just buy whatever we wanted and my husband would just transfer money to our account from our business based on what was spent as opposed to a set salary.
When you start doing that, you get nowhere fast!

We came up with a different plan: all of our bills, with the exception of one or two that don't have this option, are set up to come out automatically from our joint account. I have a separate household account for everday expenses such as groceries, barber, clothing, home decor, homeschooling expenses, gifts, and entertainment.

My husband doesn't have time to keep up with budgeting, so he just daily monitors the joint account with online banking. I however need more structure than that, so I have a small spiral-notebook that fits in my purse, and I have a page for each budget category that I need. My husband and I came to an agreed upon amount that gets us through each week with a little extra to spare, and he set up a weekly transfer. Every Friday that amount is transferred to my household account, and I budget it out accordingly. It took a little tweaking at first, but now it is running smoothly. i have even managed to start my own savings page so that I have a resource to pull from if I overspend or see something that I really want and is a great deal, but I don't have the money in its official account yet.

This works for us, and my husband doesn't complain about my shopping anymore.

Now, was that clear as mud?

-Di Di

[LuvMaui]

My husband and I have been on a budget our entire married life. There were some very poor days in the first years of our marriage. There were many years that we liened on credit cards, then refianced our mortgage to pay them off. Raising our two Daughters on a budget taught them how to budget.

We are comfortable now, but we still account for every dollar. We still have months when we spend way too much and it makes us have to dip into savings. We really need to tighten up and stick to our budget or we could end up with no savings. As far as keeping track of bills and spending I use Quicken.

[jcme]

I have never been sucessful at budgeting. I've tried paper sytems, Excel and Quicken. Everything get set up great initially, then I don't do a good job at tracking expenditures. Thankfully I am a good saver and usually think through big purchases so I do OK without a budget.

Right now I'm considering moving so I need to try to analyze my income and expenses to see what I'm comfortable in affording. If I had a budget it would be much easier.

[Mykhal Jaems]

Once a month when DH gets his check I sit down and figure out who gets paid when. Once in a while (NOT often) there's a little money left over after groceries and gas for the car.

At the moment there is NO budget for emergencies and I pray none happen. We've been living check to check for the last 3 years.

Things are really tight, but thankfully I have a good support group around me. Friends have given me work clothes that no longer fit them, and the local thrift shop has everything else we need. We just have to keep going until it shows up.

I am working on getting a new job, hopefully with the pay raise we can put money aside to get the car fixed.