How do YOU budget?

[peanutter]

Caveat! Caveat! I am a serious pathalogical budgeter.

I'm super anal, so it works for me, but not everyone would want to do it this way ...

But when I first made our budget, I projected what all (and I mean all) likely costs would be for the next 12 months, and then broke it up over fortnights.
- included rent/mortgage, utilities & rates, phone, petrol, car rego, train ticket, insurance, uni (service & amenities fees, text books, printing credits), gym membership, internet, allowance for Christmas/wedding gifts etc, medical costs, etc...

I also projected anticipated-but-hopefully-unnecessary amounts.
- included services/car repairs, incidentals ...

And then I figured how much we could afford for everything else.
- included food, clothes, slush (pocket money), entertainment (and grog came out of this one ) ...

With an allowance for a certain percentage of savings.

And I must admit that I then have double entry books on excel, with journals for each financial year, then allocation pages for each fortnight, and separate spreadsheet pages for each category, so I can see how I'm going for the financial year, and I can alter my allocations periodically as things change ...

HTH

[Gigi]

Peanutter - i wanna be you when i grow up.

i'm an anal Virgo, without the technical skills to do what you do with spreadsheets. So have the desire, but not the skill. Can open Excel, not do anything IN excel.

A financial counsellor helped me work out a budget with the KNOWN bills, but didn't know what to tell me, about the UNKNOWN bills. I'm hopeless at knowing what to put down for clothes, shoes (we don't have many, but i still don't know what to put down), presents. i have no allocation for entertainment, have got a xmas account. I know all the KNOWN fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and annual bills are covered each fortnight, and i give myself an allowance to cover food shopping/petrol and $15 per week for in the purse (that goes so fast).

i had really hoped to use OFFPEAK power, but discovered this week, that normal meters aren't covered. The place you live in, has to have a separate meter for the HWS. My HWS is on gas, so i have no clue. Cannot get my gas and electricity supplier to answer my emails on this. So i think i might be paying PEAK rates, no matter WHEN i use power.

[Amy_jellybean]

Ill add my bit but this was before we left to come to Europe and when we come home we need a serious revamp. Being over here has made me realise how much money we spend on sh*t!

DH and I have had a joint bank account since we were 17, there has never been his and my money, it has always been ours.
I get paid a retainer and commission. My retainer covers: Car payment, personal loan (big chunk which we hope to pay off much quicker when we get home) and all the little bills: health insurance, car and home insurance, $40 a month for gas etc. My commission goes directly into savings or on something we are saving for that month (holiday etc)

DH's wage covers mortgage, $500 per week 'spending money' which includes groceries, petrol, entertainment etc and then we aim to save around $2000 per month. As DH works away in the mines we do tend to dine out, have people over for dinner, spend money on cr*p when he is at home for a week, and then when he is away I dont spend anywhere near as much.

If anyone has a budgeting excel spreadsheet that they dont mind sharing I would love to use it as template so I can get my budget sorted before we get home! xxx

[emc2]

i had really hoped to use OFFPEAK power, but discovered this week, that normal meters aren't covered. The place you live in, has to have a separate meter for the HWS. My HWS is on gas, so i have no clue. Cannot get my gas and electricity supplier to answer my emails on this. So i think i might be paying PEAK rates, no matter WHEN i use power.

In Qld we are still fortunate to have flat rates for Domestic, and then the off peak hot water tariffs are metered separately. We used to have a tiered rate for the Domestic power, the more you used, the cheaper it got, but they got rid of it.

Time of use type tariffs are expensive, and I hope they never come in here.

Hopefully you are just paying a flat rate which you might perceive that you are paying peak rates all the time, however it is far better than what some people in NSW have, where they have Smartmeters. They end up paying even more for power (you only have to look at those tariffs for yourself to see it's a gimmick).

Sorry just google smart meters or interval meters and you will see the news articles and the explanation. It sounds like it is cheaper but it's a way to drive up profits.

[Liviam]

In 6 days DH & I are going to be a cash family but I have no idea how to set up our budget and do this?

Any tips?

[peanutter]

start by getting all your bills and receipts from the past year, and see what you *actually* spend p/an on food, bills, rates, rent, clothes, books, outings, presents, alcohol, gym, petrol, public transport, newspapers - everything.

then work out where you can cut a bit back, if you can anywhere.

then allow for you to put aside $$ for each "area" every fortnight. and for savings.

I actually used to have envelopes marked "rent" "bills" "train" "slush" (pocket money) etc.

and then stick to it.

and if you don't have receipts, ask friends with a similar household to you if they will share what they allow, to give you a starting point. I did this at the start, to try to predict what our initial gas, electric, water, phone etc bills would be.

once you've got that drafted, keep solid track of it all, and then work out what you need to allow more for, and where you can trim back spending.

HTH

[emc2]

I would look at getting some kind of Visa or Mastercard DEBIT card, you can use that online.