You Spend How Much?
My husband and I recently decided we needed to start living on a budget. It has been our custom for him to pay all the bills and periodically we sit down together and review where we are. Because I am the spreadsheet queen in our house though, creating a budget fell to me. I LOVE creating spreadsheets and learning how to create formulas and such. Which is kind of funny when I think about it because I really am NOT a math person. Anyway, we decided to start at the first of the year, so I’m setting it up now and we will “practice” in December learning how to keep all our receipts, account for which category each purchase goes in, etc.
Have you ever sat down and figured out what you spend your money on? We are a family of five and here’s what I have so far in no particular order.
Mortgage, electricity, water/sewer, phone, cable, internet, cell phones, school lunch, van payment, gasoline, vacation fund, Netflix, Youth activities, kids allowance, charitable giving, life insurance, estimated taxes, auto insurance, vehicle maintenance, property tax, medical expenses, home maintenance, college tuition and books, savings, vacation fund, groceries, birthday presents, Christmas presents, yearbooks, clothes, shoes, Scouting. All of these things are on my list, and I’m sure I haven’t accounted for everything that will come up.
I shall never look at picking up 5 packs of M&M’s for the family just for fun the same way again . . .
me and my partner have just done our budget wow, i know what you mean, i used just one of our bank statements and found that we were over spending by 3000 a year. our largest expence the little treats, that bottle of wine a week, that bag of sweets buying lunches at work was a reall eye opener. i used a great web site its british but it has heaps of great money saving tips, its called money saving expert http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ we have now changed our mobile phone saving 120 a year, in the process of cancelling the gym saving 125 a month ect ect.
Good luck!
And try to fit M&Ms into your lives.
It's scarey for sure! Yup we have a budget. Ours is a little shorter, but none the less too big. I love how you like to do spreadsheets- they are fun! I've even been thinking we should save for retirement now. The banks aren't doin so good…
We don't have kids, but it can still add up. Don't forget eating out! We try to do one dinner a week and that's it. And no fast food. Ever…
I love the new look of your blog, with the white on blue! It's amazing how little expenditures add up isn't it. We're working on this same thing.
It's difficult to execute a budget when you're married. We do tend to spend too much on eating out…and on the food that goes bad in the fridge when we opt to eat out instead of cooking.
School lunches where I live are $60-90 a month for each kid. I remember my fifth grade lunch was 35 cents.