Some people have asked me how we budget. What goes on our budget? This is a sample of a monthly budget. We use Microsoft Excel, but there are so many programs we can use. You can even use pen and paper and make your own chart each month.
I am finding similarties between weight loss and budgeting. If you do not pay attention to what you are eating, you overeat and crave fatty food and sugar (at least I do!). If you do not track your spending, you might be tempted to overspend. Then I find I naturally want more “stuff”–most of it I don’t really need. Or at least I don’t need it at the moment. A budget holds you accountable.
I am linking this with Life As a Mom’s Frugal Friday
This is a summary of the month–how much money came in and how much came out. It helps determine if we overspent or stayed within the budget
| Actual | Budgeted | Over/Under | Percentage | ||||||||
| Total Income | |||||||||||
| Total Expenses | |||||||||||
| Income Less Expenses | |||||||||||
| This is a list of all the money that comes in each month based on salaries. We typically know how much income we are going to bring in a given month. Neither of us work a sales job so we have a good estimate of how much salary we will bring in. | |||||||||||
| Actual | Budgeted | Over/Under | Percentage | Notes | |||||||
| Husband’s Salary | |||||||||||
| Milage Reimbursement | |||||||||||
| Other Reimbursements | |||||||||||
| Wife’s salary | |||||||||||
| Total: | |||||||||||
| This is a list of all our expenses that typically occur each month.Expenses | |||||||||||
| Actual | Budgeted | Over/Under | Percentage | Notes | |||||||
| Basic Household Expenses | |||||||||||
| Food | |||||||||||
| Offering | |||||||||||
| Household | |||||||||||
| Recrecation | |||||||||||
| Allowance i.e Personal Spending Money | |||||||||||
| Gas | |||||||||||
| Diapers | |||||||||||
| Child 1′s Allowance | |||||||||||
| Child 2′s Allowance | |||||||||||
| Child 3′s Allowance | |||||||||||
| Pets | |||||||||||
| “Other” | |||||||||||
| Subtotal: | |||||||||||
| Utility Bills | |||||||||||
| Comcast (basic cable) | |||||||||||
| Vonage | |||||||||||
| Sprint (cell phone) | |||||||||||
| Utilities | |||||||||||
| Netflix | |||||||||||
| Newspaper | |||||||||||
| Subtotal: | |||||||||||
| Then each month we put money towards “saving” categories which are the following…Saving & Investing | |||||||||||
| Christian school tutition | |||||||||||
| Car Fund | |||||||||||
| Child 1′s College | |||||||||||
| Child 2′s College | |||||||||||
| Travel/Vacations | |||||||||||
| Child 3′s College | |||||||||||
| Insurance | |||||||||||
| Subtotal: | |||||||||||
| Special Monthly ExpensesThese are special categories. Some occur on a regular basis while others are “one time” events. This is why we have “budget meetings” monthly. Different months have different expenses (especially around the holidays and birthdays) | |||||||||||
| Christmas | |||||||||||
| Swimming lessons | |||||||||||
| Child sponsorship | |||||||||||
| Husband’s master’s program | |||||||||||
| Date Night | |||||||||||
| Karate lessons | |||||||||||
| Babysitter | |||||||||||
| Subtotal: | |||||||||||
| Total: | |||||||||||
