Welcome to Day 6! {Click here to find the topic menu for the entire month along with links to each day.} Are you ready to finish filling in the blanks on those budget worksheets?
Yesterday we spent some time tracking expenses. We did this by going through receipts and bank statements to get an estimate of what we're spending on a monthly basis in categories such as food, personal care, entertainment, gas, clothing, etc.
Since our family typically functions with a budget in place, I didn't start from scratch on this one. With my husband not working right now, my main goal is to cut back in every category as much we feasibly can. What I'm doing is looking at the figures on our most recent budget sheet and reducing them, in some cases eliminating line items. For example, we budget for a babysitter once a month, but that's not a necessary expense since my mother-in-law offers to watch our kids at least once or twice a month so that we can have a date. We'll just stick with those opportunities so that we don't need to pay a babysitter.
I know from the past several months that while we typically do fine staying within budget for most categories, my biggest struggle with spending is groceries. I love to eat and feed my family good food and try new recipes, and I can easily overspend in that category. Since I know I've been routinely doing so, I'm simply going to reduce our food budget slightly and be more disciplined about keeping within that amount.
Today we're going to finish filling in those budget worksheets. Remember that we have all month to fine-tune this thing, so don't worry if your income and expenses don't equal each other at this point. (If this is your first time doing a budget, they probably won't!)
Start with your income. On your worksheet, record each source of income that you receive, broken down into a monthly amount. If you're paid bi-weekly, you may want to do as we did and pretend that you receive two paychecks per month all year long and budget accordingly. Then those two months a year when you get three paychecks, you can put the extra money into savings, use it to pay down debt, save for vacation, etc.
Now finish filling in all of the fixed & variable expenses that apply to you, using the monthly estimates you came up with yesterday. Write down everything you can think of that you spend money on, even if you think you may have to end up removing it from your budget later.
Once again, you're not focused right now on making changes and balancing your budget. That will come in a few days. Just get everything down so that your foundation is laid.
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.
