Tell me about your budget!

[briggsy's girl]

electricity - ring the company and ask them to average your bill over the year and then just pay that. i pay fortnightly and it doesn't phase me seeing that money go out of the bank cos it's automatic. being on mains gas (if you have gas) you should be able to do the same (we're on bottled, so have to budget for it)

water, you can kinda work out yourself and pay it off like that. just have a look at a water bill, work out how much it is weekly or fortnightly, and pay that out

phone - same thing - just work out what your average bill is and pay that portion when you get paid. for us, it's about 120 a fortnight for house phone and mobiles (but we have high mobile plans given our living situation with DH being away so much)

set up a seperate account for money for rates and rego - smooth it over a year and put that much per fortnight into the account. IF you have to dip into it for something before that money is due to be paid out (last resort) work out how much you've taken out, and then you have to pay more back into it until those bills come due

fuel, work out your average fortnight and then add AT LEAST 20% to cover fluctuations. if you dont use it, save it - there will always be stuff that crops up that you need to get to or pay for, so that extra is a godsend. our fuel when i'm working is about $100 a fortnight (as you know, i live in the sticks, so no choice but to travel) - we budget $150 a fortnight from my pay to fork out for fuel - the normal expenses come out of that, the extra $50 is for incidentals like the trips we were doing for IVF or are now doing for hospital. if you can, put extra aside for services. work out how much the average service is, how often, put it aside

insurance - not sure if you have PHI or not, but a lot of companies will, for both PHI and your car/home/contents allow you to pay by the month (or we've lucked into fortnightly payments) - i have an account that money goes into just for this. have never missed a payment, never been without insurance cover in the 11 years since i first got cover.

groceries are hard to budget cos your needs and things vary depending on the time of year and whether kids are eating solids. work out an average bill, and budget an extra amount (as Leasha said, the extra $50 is her safety net) - buy in BULK where you can. it seems a lot at the time, but the long term savings are huge!

one REALLY important thing - budget "play money" for you and DH - doesn't need to be much, really depends on your lifestyle - but ALWAYS allow an amount each week or fortnight that you don't need to justify. it might be the money for takeaway when you're out, might be money you spend on getting your hair done - but it's money you don't have to include in your justifications - it's simply $30 a week (as an example) that either of you have to spend that you don't have to try to explain. if it goes on chocolate, so be it - if you go out to lunch, so be it. it takes the "stigma" off living on a budget if you have money to play with. if you don't spend it, put it in a money box (i really do this!) at the end of the week and it's your own little emergency fund. mine lives in a glasses case and last count there was about $60 in shrapnel that i hadn't put in our savings money boxes - it is MY safety net if something is needed kwim?

good luck

BG

[Indadhanu]

I agree with BG, play money is really important. It's like a diet raelly, if you cut something out completely you're gonna end up going over the top with it eventually. If you don't budget for play money, if you're too strict, you'll blow the whole budget and be back where you started (or worse, if you have a buying binge).

[Arimeh]

This is what I've got so far

Outgoings
Mortgage payment 388
Food 250
Electricity 25
Phone 55
Petrol 50
Rates 37
Insurance 30
NIB 39
child care 78
foxtel 15
World Vision 10
Miscellaneous 98
Rego 20

That takes basically ALL our weekly pays.. arghh!! like, all but 50c !!!!

[saslia]

I'm thinking that your food bill is fairly high...this may be a place you can cut $$ out - do you meal plan??

[mybabylove]

we dont budget but think we may have to start as i will not be working soon.

[Arimeh]

I'm thinking that your food bill is fairly high...this may be a place you can cut $$ out - do you meal plan??

Umm yeah we do meal plan. DS is on oats milk - which is exxy.. and soy yoghurt - again, exxy. DD is on soy formula - which is about $25 a tin. So its about $50 a week just for those 3 things....

[Megan]

We budget $200pw for food and petrol and I averaged out all of our bills (utilities, insurances, rates etc) over the year which works out at $225 pw and put that away separately so whenever a bill comes in I just pay it. Play money is a definite necessity. Some weeks we can have $50 each, some weeks $50 between us, but it's something.

[Winter]

Today is my first day of maternity leave and I have sat down and set up a budget in Excel. I didn't realise just how much our monthly out-goings were. Its been a real eye-opener. And now we're down to one income....I really need to get a handle on things!

I too have added up all the regular bills & expenses and averaged them over the year to come up with a weekly figure that I have to put aside into a separate "Bills" bank account. I have set this up as an automatic transfer when DH gets paid.

We pay a bit extra on our mortgage and hopefully will continue to do that, even a small amount regularly cuts down the length of the loan so I'm happy to keep that up and skimp somewhere else.

We have take-away once a week, so I should pop that into the budget now that I'm thinking about it.

Tell you what, its a good thing I'm a good cook, can make a meal from nothing and can do 1001 things with mince!

ETA: What do you think I have to think about with the arrival of a new baby? What sort of things do I need to add to the budget? I am going down the MCN & breastfeeding (fingerscrossed) paths so hopefull its just little things like creams and clothes?

PS Sorry for hijicking Arimeh!!

[westy]

Arimeh,

I do the budgeting in our household and i think i have it down pat now, each week when DH gets paid i bpay our bills straight away....we pay extra on the mortgage, electricity and rates each week then on alternate weeks i will also pay a bit of the mobile account, this basically means that when those bills (elect,rates,mobile) do come in they are at a very minimum if anything at all -although having said that in Dec i received a bill from optus saying we owed them xxx amount of dollars when i had already paid it on bpay but the three payments went missing!

Our budget is something like this:
Home loan $650
Pre-school $130
Fuel (two cars) $100
Food $250
Parking (Dh's work) $30
Extra's(play money) $100
Rates $50
Electricity $50
CC $150
Savings $200

This is an average week, it does change as DH gets paid different each week depending on what shift he does...so the above list is what we do on his highest paid week. The lowest week is pretty much the same except for CC and Savings they arent as much and sometimes not at all.

[Inertia]

I don't write a budget. I find that its much like a diet. One self indulgent splurge and you are back at square one. The budget/diet itself tends to be the cause of that self indulgent splurge because it feels so restrictive, and you need to feel freedom.

When the money comes in, I pay by priority. What I NEED is prioritised over what I want. When you have recognised exactly what you need it starts making things much easier. I *need* the internet for my DHs business. I *want* pay tv. You can imagine which bill gets paid first if I can only do one.

It works much more extensivly to that too. I *need* a mobile phone. I *don't* need it to take photos. I - and my sister - go into more detail on this on my mothers "You can make an Impact" blog. But its and extremely liberating philsophy. I feel chuffed when I buy a $12 DVD at the big movie sales, because its not something I needed, its something I wanted.