So as a result of the economy going down the crapper....and all the debt that I've acquired recently and not so recently, I actually have to come up with a budget for myself, which is NEVER fun right? To be honest I actually have no idea where to start in my plan to create a budget that even I can stick to, so does anyone out there have any ideas, tips, knowledge, etc. to help me out? If you do you can either leave a comment here on the blog or you can e-mail me at jamiehanna84@gmail.com. I need all the help that I can get with this project, so if you can please help me, you'd be my new BFF. Have a great weekend everyone!
Jamie
9 comments:
What I would suggest is to be reasonable with your budget. If you HAVE to have coffee, budget for it. If you HAVE to eat out once in awhile, budget for it.
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I used to always have a budget, until I got married and then that idea went right out the window! I hear Quicken is good but I've never used it.
You could just set up an excel spreadsheet. I would tell you how but I don't actually keep a budget myself! :) I've just heard people do that!
As much as I want to be your new bff, I have no ideas to give you. That's not really my thing. It should be - but it's not. I just try to stop buying things if we run out of money instead of putting on the credit card. That's as far as I go with budgeting. No help, though, probably. Can we still be e-friends, if not bff's???
You could try robbing a bank. If you succeed, then it's no more budget - yay!!!
Next crisis?
I've never done Dave Ramsey's course but he has some ideas on his website that are good. We used the "debt snowball" where you pay the minimum payment on every debts except the smallest one. On the smallest you add a bit more than minimum payment. Then when it's paid off take all the money you were paying to it and add it to the next smallest loan and work on it till you've paid it. This way you see good progress and things do get paid off. Hope that made sense. Check out his website!
My hubby is a Quicken follower for our budget, but when we were first married (and way broke) and then later when we were trying to save up for an adoption, we did the envelope system. What you do is take a stack of envelopes and label each one for one budget item (like fuel, food, entertainment, etc) and then at the beginning of the month, we put an allotted amount into each envelope. Then, when that envelope ran out, we could either borrow from another envelope or we were out of luck (so, if we needed gas, we could take money out of, say, entertainment for it but if we ran out in the entertainment envelope, tough noogies for the rest of the month). We didn't touch our bank account or ATM or credit cards through the month for any of the things in the envelope system. (Things like the mortgage/rent and utilities we still paid on their own, not out of envelopes.) This really helped us save up and also helped by actually seeing how much money was left over the course of the month to keep track of spending. If we got to week 3 of the month and there was only $40 left in the groceries budget, maybe we didn't buy more of something or got the generic instead of the brand name, you know? Or if we only had $10 left in entertainment, we didn't go out to eat, but instead would rent a DVD...
To establish how much we put in the envelope each month in the beginning, we kept track of how much we spent on average, then decreased it a little bit (like in the entertainment budget) since we were trying to save up, and that was the set amount that went in each month.
Hope that makes sense and is somewhat helpful! Good luck!
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I am so sorry...you would not want me to answer that. I do pinch pennies by using coupons and shopping at second hand stores.
Thank you everyone for your input on putting together my budget...I really appreciate it!
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