Welcome to Day 3! {Click here to find the topic menu for the entire month along with links to each day.} Are you ready to progress beyond piles?
Our assignment from yesterday was to take all the pertinent paperwork we gathered and sort it into like piles. I don't know about you, but accomplishing that step really made me feel like I was getting somewhere! It's my love for order, I guess.
Now that you've organized all of your income and bills, it's time to actually do something with those numbers!
Some of you may ultimately end up using software to track your budget, which is great. But I recommend grabbing a pencil to do this initial plugging in of numbers. If you do a Google search, you'll find a lot of free, printable worksheets out there for completing this step.
My personal favorite is part of this budgeting booklet from EdFund.org. (If you choose to use this one, print pages 3-4 for now.) The initial process involves recording very specific line-item figures in three major areas: Income Sources, Fixed Expenses, and Variable Expenses. Those figures will eventually be grouped together into broader categories on the final budget list. For example, Electricity, Gas, Water, Sewer, and Garbage will be combined as "Utilities."
For now, don't be bothered if you don't like the way the categories are divided or where certain lines are located. Just get the numbers from yesterday plugged in, and you will get a feel later for what you need to change or rearrange. The worksheet I've recommended is quite comprehensive, but if you find you need to add a line based on the paperwork you've gathered, do so in its respective category Keep in mind that you're only working with the numbers from yesterday at this point. You'll have a lot of blank lines when you're finished.
Tomorrow we will take a closer look at the numbers we've written down and spend some time prioritizing them. Don't be scared. This is a good thing!
If you're working through these steps along with me, I'd love to know!
Please leave a comment and share how it's going.
The framework for this series is being used with permission from Inexpensively.
