OK, so I had this idea and wanted to share since typically this is the time of year when people look to get their finances in order.
One thing that Rachelle and I have always done fairly well is budget. We have a good idea of what's going on financially in the house and have kept tabs on different programs throughout the years.
With my new job and 3 kids, we've found it increasingly difficult to keep track of the monies, as taking the time to sit down and imput and categorize was too daunting of a task.
We wanted something that made it more simple to keep track of our finances but still help us reign in the areas that we felt we were losing a bit of control over.
The form here for Excel and here for PDF allow you to get a glance of how we generally divide our outflow and keep track of it.
So when we get home from spending money, we X out the appropriate number of dollars we spent (for example, if we spend $50 on groceries, then we would X out ten $5 spots--if we spend $52 then we X-out ten $5 spots and then put 2 check marks in the next box)
It helps us to see when we have been spending too much in any one category and then we can reign in the spending.
One thing that we don't do any more is keep track of fixed expenses (cell phone, internet, etc...) and know that those are a part of what goes out, but it's not helpful with this system since it is the same every month. The purpose of this system is to keep tabs on the categories that we could easily go over the amount (groceries, eating out, entertainment, etc...)
If you have any questions/ideas, I'd love to chat.
Happy New Year
2 comments:
we've been starting up using MINT so that it's easy for both of us to see what's going on and where we stand during the month. We also combine all utilities into one bucket and don't scrutinize them but do have an estimated amount of what they'll be. There's not much maintenance with it and that's my favorite part.
Great job of tracking your variable expenses! Just like on Til Debt Do Us Part - with financial wizard Gail Vaz-Oxlade. Jeff and I are keeping track of our variable expenses as a New Years resolution in effort to eliminate mindless spending.
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