Beginner Budgeting

I’m an accountant. 

By nature. 

By trade. 

I see things in credit and debit. 

Assets.  Liabilities.

Income.  Expenses.

(Take a guess at who’s the nerd and who’s the free spirit in our marriage.) 

I have some wonderful professors to thank for that.  (Mr. Wasser, namely.  Imagine, a tall skinny guy who used to say he’d eat a cup of peanut butter with chocolate syrup drizzled over it EVERY night and celebrated anniversaries at the Whataburger.  Classy.  But I enjoyed him.)

Not everyone is a bean counter, I know. 

Credit

But I have been shocked at how many people I talk with who don’t have a budget. 

Credit

Don't ask me how it comes up in conversation, but it almost always does and I inevitably end up gawking at them until they start to squirm.

(Much the same way people stare me down when I ask for mayonnaise on my hot dog.) 

And in reality, it only counts as a real budget if it’s written down – not in your head.

Don't tell me you have a budget that you can't show to me.  Cause no one sticks to a budget that can't tell on them. 

In my experience, the majority of people simply pay bills as they come in and at any given time, have no idea how much money they have, what bills are due, and if they have the money to pay them.  There’s no planning, and certainly no thought put into it.

Now I realize not everyone has what my husband refers to as “the sickness” and actually enjoys number crunching.  Although some people swear they hate it, I don’t believe them.  It’s beyond my human comprehension.  Kinda like eternity.  But whatever.

My budget looks similarly like a corporate income statement (just with much fewer zeros & commas.)

You have to know what comes in and what goes out.  And it needs to be by month.  Regardless of how often you get paid.  Expenses are monthly and they trump income.  (Expenses are the rock and income is the scissors in this game.  Don’t ask about paper – I can’t think of a correlation yet.)

My good buddy Dave, has budget forms on his website with recommended percentages.  I like those forms for a beginner who has no clue. 

I use an Excel spreadsheet with twelve tabs at the bottom - one tab for each month.  (And while we were paying off debt, I would do an extra tab for the balances of all our debts with the monthly payments so I could watch the balance go down with each payment.)

But I am a Nerd, so....

I split up our expenses by those due by the 15^th of the month and those due by the 30^th of the month.  Our first two checks pay the first set of bills and our second checks pay the last set.  I copy and paste that to each month.  Then, I go back through and add/subtract the variables – birthdays, special events, holidays, etc. that add or subtract from the budget. 

In all fairness, I know this method may not work for everyone.  My sister Leah, just moved her family from a weekly budget to a monthly budget and she pays all her bills at the beginning of the month. 

Again, it's about finding a method that works for you and your family.

And sticking to it.

If you don't have a budget currently, I would highly recommend you check into some of the resources listed above. 

After all, you never know how much you could have until you get rid of what you are wasting....