Thrifty Thoughts:: A Link Up with The Vanilla Tulip:: Week 1: Budget

One of my 'favorite' quotes that I say...and dare I say, I made it up...but it's this...

"There are two things I hate to waste, and that's time and money."

Time is so precious! Because I work outside of the home, and am away from my boys during the day, I want to make the most of my time with them when I'm at home...or if I choose to be out for an afternoon/night I want to make sure it's a good use of my time.  (Hair appts, girls night out, dinners, etc.)

And, because I choose to work, and have that time away from Easton, I want to make sure I'm spending my hard earned money wisely.

Growing up, my dad was a big spreadsheet user.  If I made $100, we'd sit down and determine what would go where.  Church.  Savings.  Responsibilities.  Play.  I never knew NOT to do it. 

I am a penny pencher for sure.  I don't think I'm cheap {my mother may say otherwise}, but I do like to pay attention to where my money goes. 

For me, the easiest way to do this is a spreadsheet.  If you know me, you know I love spreadsheets...if you don't 'know' me, well...now, you at least know this.

Lance and I began budgeting our money shortly after Easton was born.  Neither one of us got a pay raise when he was born, but we were going to have to creatively carve out enough for diapers, wipes, clothes and-----GASP-----CHILDCARE! 

And let me just say, it's amazing to look back and see how much we could have been saving! We were good about saving but not as good as we could have been. For all of you without kiddos yet, or even single, carve out money for savings.  You'll be so thankful you did!

Once we had Easton, and decided we wouldn't live in our house forever, we really started budgeting.  We wanted to save for some land and build our own home.

Here's where the budgeting begins.  This week I'm going to show you a sample of our budget and how we determine what money goes where and next week, I'll show you my other spreadsheet of how I see what we spend where and then determine what, if any, goes to savings for home, vacation, play, etc. 

 

And...this is not rocket science, I'm no Dave Ramsey, but I thought I'd show you how we do it. 

This will look different for everyone, but for us, this is where we start.

Section 1: Montly Income: Determine what your household income is (after taxes)

Section 2: Monthly Bills: Write down all of your bills, that you HAVE to pay each month.

(Mortgage, Cable, Vehicles, Electricity, Water, Insurance, Cell Phone, Trash, etc.)

Section 3: Remaining after bills: Subtract your Monthly Bills from your Monthly Income to determine how much is left to split between the Other Budgeted Expenses. 

Section 4: Other Budgeted Expenses: This is things like gas, food, childcare, childs needs (diapers, wipes, clothes, toys, etc), clothing, play/misc, health & beauty, church.

Section 5: Wiggle Room: Subtract your Other Budgeted Expenses from Remaining after bills to determine your Wiggle Room.  We have a column on the other spreadsheet that says wiggle room.  This is for things that you might not plan for (tags for vehicle, registration, yearly fees, etc).

For us, we don't budget for savings, but we budget LESS than what our Combined Income is so we can put something into savings..  Lance is paid on commission so his check is different each month.  Some months we are able to save more than others.  But they even out in the end. 

Some months we nail it and some months we fail, but it's so nice to have some sort of guideline to follow and to see where we need to improve.  And, for the record, it's always food & play/misc.  Bass Pro goes under the play/misc. column if you should need to know. 

It's really important to me to tell your money where to go.  Like I said earlier, we could have saved a LOT more before having Easton if we had been using this method.  But, lesson learned, we do it now. 

I hope you have found this helpful and maybe it will encourage you to start saving and budgeting!  It's really nice when you have that summer vacation paid for with a little here and there you've saved throughout the year.  It makes the beach a lot more enjoyable knowing you don't have to make payments on your credit card once vacation is over.

Hope on over the the lovely Ashley's blog where there are some other fine women linking up their Thrifty Thoughts!