Budgeting

[fiOWNya]

For those that budget, how do you budget? Do you use Quicken? Excel? YNAB? What are your thoughts behind budgeting?

I use You Need a Budget (YNAB) as my budgeting system. I love that you budget for the month using what you made the month before - say goodbye to living paycheck-to-paycheck. I don't know how I'd survive without a budget... I definitely enjoy being able to save money and figuring out jobs for every dollar... it's an obsession, really.

[bigm141414]

Mint FTW yo. Seriously, having all of my accounts in one place with pretty graphs and colors makes it easy to understand my personal cash flow. Without out Mint I'd probably have no idea how much I spend, or at least it would take me a lot longer to figure out.

I like budgeting although I don't follow it as close as I once did now that I have a comfortable amount of savings set aside. Plus I went through about 3 years of penny pinching and now I feel a need to live life a bit more.

[ETFnerd]

i use Yodlee

[wildross]

Quicken for us. We have the budget amounts in recurring expenses which I 'enter' as soon as I get paid. Then as the bills come out, the split is reduced. Never been able to get the Quicken budgetting mode to work for us.

[smurray]

That is the biggest challenge in our household. My wife and I can never get into the habit of sitting down and reviewing the budget. We mainly get an overview every quarter and adjust when needed. I think I need to make it a goal for 2012.

[citabean]

I actually have my budget in both Excel and Mint. I worked out everything in Excel, because the format was easier for me. Then I plugged all the numbers into Mint, hooked up my accounts and set up e-mail alerts. I don't review as often as I should and part of my 2012 goal is to budget better. One thing I'm going to try is to make envelopes with the budgeted amount written on them (like $100 for groceries/week) and keep the cash for the time frame in there as well as the receipts. Then I can total my receipts, write it on the envelope vs the amount budgeted and any extra goes into the vacation fund. We'll see how it goes

[scarletleavy]

I use Excel at this point, but I assume in the future when my situation (24, single) changes I'll have to either change my Excel formulas or use something more in depth. But right now it works for me. I don't have a ton of expenses, most of the expenses I do have are auto-deducted and already accounted for, so there's not a lot besides discretionary spending to keep track of.

[Oogiem]

For those that budget, how do you budget? Do you use Quicken? Excel? YNAB? What are your thoughts behind budgeting?

We don't have a budget per se, as in set amounts of money for specific purposes. I do know exactly how much we have spent and we have rough figure we try to stick to on a yearly basis but we are not to obsessed with it. Some years we spend more and some less.

I use Quicken to track all expenses. I'm still on Quicken 2007 because Intuit has not seen fit to make a Mac version that tracks investment accounts and accepts downloaded broker statements and can track automatic stock prices and other investment returns.

There are a few free categories, tools, for example. If either of us needs a tool it's bought if we have the cash and we'll figure out how to scrimp somewhere else later. Tools are always good investments IMO.

I won't use anything like Mint, or the Quicken on-line tools or any other cloud based financial sites. I won't even use things like Evernote or any cloud storage of critical financial or personal data. Spent way too many years in the computer security business to ever trust my personal data and backups to anyone but me and machines I totally control. To say we are cloud computing adverse doesn't even come close. I won't leave e-mail on the server either for similar reasons.

[Shaun1105]

I just use Excel. Tried Mint but didn't like it. I try to sit down at the end of each month and budget for the following one.

[vwmarvin]

I just use MS Excel. Just a simple "Gas is $50/week * 4 weeks = $200/month", do that for all of my expences (Car Gas, Electric, Home Gas, Groceries, "Going Out Money" etc.) then throw in an "Emergency Fund" and just make sure it's all under what my paycheck is going to be. I'm on salary so I know how much my check is going to be ever two weeks. Nothing too fancy but it works for me.

[stolympiakos]

This is something I've been really trying to work on. I'm very OCD when I start tracking something, so I have three different ways that I work on. You need a budget handles all of my budgeting needs, and i use mint to track what I spend during the course of a week, and input and sync stuff daily with YNAB. I track all my receipts using evernote and a Fujitsu scansnap, so I can limit paper and such. I have a checkbook/transaction register on my phone as well, so I enter that in, and manually balance my accounts at the end of every month.

Excessive? Most definitely. But if I don't do this, I lose track of things, which is worse for me than tracking too much.

On a side note, it's been YNAB that has really made it fun for me. Seeing the extra money from every budget category build up is really exciting!

[WizardTrip]

Years ago, I used Quicken religiously. I switched over to Mint when it first came out, then stopped using it when Intuit bought them. I now just have my trusty Excel spreadsheet.

[Guest guest4729]

I really should be using an Excel spread sheet...perhaps I'll start doing that. I've been wanting to track my money closer because, as a waitress, I get tips and I just walk away at the end of the day with cash. Sometimes that just isn't very good for me. Especially when grocery shopping. Sometimes I'm like "Oh yeah, I'll buy tons of meat or fruit today" when I should have spread it out a little bit more evenly. Bleh.

[AnMiSu]

I'm glad this thread was started. I need to set myself up on a budget and I was originally thinking of using Excel but now it's nice to get the names of a few other programs to look into them. Thanks for sharing everyone.

[Maggie May]

I started using Mint recently. It is really nice to see the cash flow and your spending habits. They have a nice section on setting up goals and things like that, too.

[WeirdsAllIveGot]

I just started developing/following a real grown up budget; I use mint.com and a Google docs spreadsheet, and Google calendar.

• Mint.com lets me see exactly where my money is going so I can develop the budget and monitor spending.
  
• The spreadsheet plots out my spending every day for the next year; bills, rent, birthday presents, money set aside for holidays, anything I can think of. I can go to any day in the next year and see how much I -should- have in the bank.
  
• I formatted the spreadsheet so I can import it into Google calendar with reminders. I get a reminder a week in advance of any spending I added to the spreadsheet.
  

So far its working out decent. Its lowered my stress level a lot; I'm not in the dark anymore.

[AuroraNorth]

I wrote up a paper budget a couple of years ago and adjust it as needed. ATM I'm focusing on cutting expenses, so the budget is a great way to tell me where the money is going. I also do the "write down every single penny spent for a month" when I notice I'm slipping- it helps you spot financial weaknesses. For example, those weekday candy bars I was having every lunchtime last year- not anymore. That $5 goes into my treat jar instead.

[jrhunter]

I started using Mint recently. It is really nice to see the cash flow and your spending habits. They have a nice section on setting up goals and things like that, too.

I second using mint.com. I've been using it for three years and it records everything and keeps all my transactions in easy to visualize charts. Since using it, I've started doing stocks, I've started an IRA, and I've set up separate accounts for various goals; such as retirement, buying a house, travel expenses, and an emergency fund.

[Swthrtsuzy]

We use Excel. It's much easier for me (unfortunately an accountant and so the one who so lovingly gets tasked with such things by the hubs) to keep up with. Tried Quicken and hated it, tried Mint and hated it...guess I'm just kinda old school when it comes to these sorts of things. I <3 Excel. Hubs used Mint before we were married and loved it, so I guess it just comes down to personal preferences, knowledge of the software (web-based seems to be easier for most folks to work with), and what kinds of things you want to track. If I sat down and tracked every single skinny vanilla latte that we bought, I'd go nuts, but since I don't, our basic budget spreadsheet does very nicely.

[GreenEyesBright]

I love Mint! So much easier plus it helped me prove to my ex that he was spending 2 grand a month on ebay (comics, dvds, collector toys all nerdy but way to much stuff). He didn't believe me!

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

[Strawberry Squatcake]

We have a program tied into our online banking where I keep my accounts. It aggregates all of my accounts, and is similar to Mint.

If you are trying to start a budget, and like paper forms, the first budget I ever created with through Dave Ramsey. Start with the quickie budget. When that's filled out, step up to the monthly cash flow planning budget. It seems like an extra step to do both, but breaking them down that way (like he has you do in Financial Peace) really did make it easier. For me anyway. Dave has you spend every single penny. Since I'm salary, that made the budget easier for me than those who are paid hourly. So consider that, too.

For some reason I can't get the hyperlink thing to work. It's been that kind of Friday! Here's a link to his forms if you like paper: http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-forms/

If mint.com is similar to the software embeded in our online banking, it takes trends of what you've spent over the past X months (the history it has) and tells you what you've spent. You can easily see where you're spending more than you thought and set goals based on that, if you want to work backward. For example, I was spending WAY too much eating out. Eye-opener!

[Lizifer]

*dusts off old thread*

So you've built your budget, and you look at where your cash flow heads every month, and over time. YAY!

But if you're me, you have a hard time implementing/ sticking with where your money should be going. How do you fight the temptation to spend your hard-earned ducats - or resist urge for instant gratification? I know I'm incredibly susceptible to marketing or purchasing out of boredom, so I try to avoid window shopping, but I have a very difficult time turning down dinner with friends (wow, we actually are free at the same time? I'm in!) because we can go months between seeing one another or similar.

What are your best tricks and tips for things like this? This is one of my largest trouble areas - I can resist clothes and art, but turning down a dinner with friends is a frequent downfall.

[YuYu2]

*dusts off old thread*

So you've built your budget, and you look at where your cash flow heads every month, and over time. YAY!

But if you're me, you have a hard time implementing/ sticking with where your money should be going. How do you fight the temptation to spend your hard-earned ducats - or resist urge for instant gratification? I know I'm incredibly susceptible to marketing or purchasing out of boredom, so I try to avoid window shopping, but I have a very difficult time turning down dinner with friends (wow, we actually are free at the same time? I'm in!) because we can go months between seeing one another or similar.

What are your best tricks and tips for things like this? This is one of my largest trouble areas - I can resist clothes and art, but turning down a dinner with friends is a frequent downfall.

Lizifer I'm very scattered so doing line by line budgets don't usually work well for me. I also like to spend money on little stuff (like books, magazines, organic snacks, fripperies off etsy) that add up quickly. The best way for me to save money is just to have amnesty days where I commit to spending NO money. That's usually Monday,Wednesday, and Thursday. No quick trips to the store, no trips to the ATM, no eating out, nothing. Whatever I don't have, I just make do without for those 24 hours. That also freezes impulse buying and by the next day the urge to splurge is usually gone. This also forces me to plan ahead (make sure I have food, gas, pet stuff etc). By forcing myself to plan it also forces me to budget. I also overestimate everything I buy. So if something is 5.00$ I put in my ledger or whatever scrap of paper I'm using to keep track that month 6.00. By overestimating, I end up with extra money at the end of the month and I deposit that in my savings account. Also, I wouldn't recommend this but it works for me if you have trouble charging stuff. I have ONE credit card with a company that I despise (Bank of America). I use that BOA card for anything non-essential I purchase or pay online and that guarantees that I will pay that off early and in full each month because I refuse to pay finance charges to those thieves . I also think twice before using it, because I know I have to pay it off right away. It's crazy, but it works. I have a separate card with my credit union with a low interest rate for anything like a home repair that's expensive and will take me a few months to pay off.

Re: Dinner

Can you and your friends form a dinner collective and cook for each other a few times a month? My work buddies and I also do a version of this sometimes to make that whole lunch meeting thing less expensive. Another thing my friends and I've noticed is drinks and beverages are usually the biggest hikes on a restaurant bill. If you are not going out to drink, stick with water!

[Strawberry Squatcake]

*dusts off old thread*

So you've built your budget, and you look at where your cash flow heads every month, and over time. YAY!

But if you're me, you have a hard time implementing/ sticking with where your money should be going. How do you fight the temptation to spend your hard-earned ducats - or resist urge for instant gratification? I know I'm incredibly susceptible to marketing or purchasing out of boredom, so I try to avoid window shopping, but I have a very difficult time turning down dinner with friends (wow, we actually are free at the same time? I'm in!) because we can go months between seeing one another or similar.

What are your best tricks and tips for things like this? This is one of my largest trouble areas - I can resist clothes and art, but turning down a dinner with friends is a frequent downfall.

Two approaches that have (mostly) worked for me. First, I have a dining out line item in my budget. It's not realistic that I'll cook every single day. So most meals come from this, and then I don't feel guilty or lazy for eating out, and I have a more controlled/planned approach. I also get a lot of invites last minute, so I could easily spend my money on just these invites. So.... that's why I also do this next thing.

I also have a "junk/crap line item" that can be spent on anything I want. Dave Ramsey actually recommends this, and I think it's all psychological. Even if it's relatively small ($10 or $20 a month), it gives you a little wiggle room. Make it proportionate to whatever your goals and income are. So if you're really trying to save or don't have a bunch of extra money at the end of the month, obviously it'll have to be smaller. If you have more wiggle room, give yourself an amount that would allow you to splurge on something you really want. For example, there's a theatre in town I love to go to. It serves real food and the seats are roomy (each seat has its own arm rests - no sharing, and TONS of leg room). So while the food's expensive, if I give myself $30 a month, I can easily do that and still have some extra money through the month for little things like a random energy drink, little bits of makeup, a new spice for the kitchen, etc. Stuff I don't need, but it keeps me under control.

I generally try to go to the movie at the end of the month, that way the money's there if I want to spend it on something else. Because in the back of my mind I know i could also watch that movie at home for $1.29. But it's a nice splurge.

[Elastigirl]

We do the Dave Ramsey envelope system and I like that. I put the money for dining in an envelope and that is what we have to spend. If I know friends are coming from out of town then the paycheck before I won't spend my dining money, then I will have extra $ for when they come. Sometimes, life happens unexpectedly and friends show up and we want to eat out If I have money in the junk/crap/blow money category I'll use that, or invite then to eat at our house, or sometimes (rarely) if its one of times when the only way to see them is to spend money we will take it from another envelope item-such as grocery. But then we know we are short on grocery money which will mean a lot of hamburger is eaten that paycheck. I like the envelope system as it isvery tanglible- I can see the money is there-or not there