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Hello! I'm starting my first adult job as a special education teacher, so I'm making a budget to try and start off on the right foot financially. Any thoughts or criticism you all have would be very helpful! Income: Gross Yearly Income: 46,730 Yearly Pension Contributions (required by law): 3,668 Yearly 405b Contributions (basically the non-profit version of a 401K, but without matching): 3,216 Estimated Yearly Taxes (based on twelve percent rate): 4,781 Net Yearly Income: 37,464 Net Monthly Income: 3,122 Monthly Expenses: Fixed Costs: Rent: 1005 Utilities: ~100 (I've only lived at my current place for a month, so I'm still figuring out how much it'll be on average) Internet: 69 TV: 10 (Netflix) Phone: 80 Insurance (car, health, etc.): 313 Flexible Spending: Groceries: 150 Gas: 150 Laundry: 10 Clothing/Grooming: 100 Spending Money (movies, eating out, other personal expenses): 200 Rainy Day Funds: Savings: 574 Gifts: 50 Vet Trip: 50 Currently, I have 13,770 set aside in savings. Once I get six month's living expenses saved up, is it best to just have them sitting in a savings account?
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Aug 23, 2015 02:23
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That net monthly income seems high based on your salary and deductions. I'm assuming that you live in a state without income tax? This calculator is pretty accurate, in my experience: http://www.adp.com/tools-and-resources/calculators-and-tools/payroll-calculators/salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx Punching your numbers in to the calcualtor without any state income tax, 1 federal exemption, and assuming your deductions are tax exempt, I'm coming up with $2,685.59 for your monthly take-home. Your rent seems really high--any way to reduce it? il serpente cosmico fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 23, 2015 |
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Aug 23, 2015 19:42
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il serpente cosmico posted:That net monthly income seems high based on your salary and deductions. I'm assuming that you live in a state without income tax?  Well, I may have just financially screwed the pooch, then. I live in Texas, so yeah, no state income tax. As for rent, I live in Austin, which is crazy expensive, and in an expensive area. I just moved in last month, and it would cost a month's rent to break the lease and then another couple hundred to move, probably. I might have to, though.Welp. I was basing my calculations on the twelve percent deducted from my paychecks from my last job, but obviously I messed up badly.  Thanks for correcting me! Better to figure this out now. I'm going to have to do some major shuffling around of all my expenses and cut a lot of it to the bone.
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Aug 23, 2015 21:08
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I came up with $5,003 in federal tax, which matches ADP with 2 allowances. $2,605.66/mo take home. Either way, a lot less than $3,122. I think you can afford the rent, but its going to kill your savings. I wouldn't want to have that high of rent as a % of take home, but many people do it. You have vet trips, but no recurring monthly pet expenditure? My dog needs treats, dry food, flea drops, misc stuff like poop bags (though I buy these every 2yrs or so, in large quantity on sale) etc.
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Aug 23, 2015 22:36
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SiGmA_X posted:I came up with $5,003 in federal tax, which matches ADP with 2 allowances. $2,605.66/mo take home. Either way, a lot less than $3,122. I have a cat, and because I buy her food, litter, and other sundries at the grocery store, I just roll it in under that category. I might be able to afford the rent, but I want to be able to save something (6 month's income, then a down payment on a house, etc.). It might be worth moving, then. I want to contribute a reasonable amount to retirement, even though some other teachers I've spoken to don't even make contributions to their 405B, because they think that their pension will be enough when they retire. I'm not even sure if the pension system will still be around when I retire in 40 years!
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Aug 23, 2015 22:45
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What is your housing situation like? Would it be possible to get a roommate? I don't think you need to move ASAP, but if you can't get a roommate I'd definitely try to get somewhere cheaper when your lease is up.
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Aug 24, 2015 00:16
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Pinball posted:I have a cat, and because I buy her food, litter, and other sundries at the grocery store, I just roll it in under that category. You're thinking about this correctly, for sure. I'm not sure if it's better to break the lease or hold out for a year. Another consideration would be your income growth track.
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Aug 24, 2015 04:36
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SiGmA_X posted:Ah okay, I split my costs out. Household, etc. Lots of things come from Costco or the grocery store, so I itemize it out into groups when I get home from the store. I've done it since I was a kid, I can't help it now! I think breaking the lease would be dependent on how much the rent is at the next place. It would need to be significantly lower to make it up in a decent time frame when working with a tight budget. Though if that rent is a one bed room or studio, getting a place that is $1500 with a roommate would be a fantastic option. That's how it is in San Diego for the most part. One bedrooms or studios aren't that much cheaper that multi bedroom apartments or houses for rent.
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Aug 24, 2015 06:51
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This is my first month creating and really sticking to a budget. So far things are pretty much on track:code:
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Aug 25, 2015 21:36
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Do you plan on adding all of life's other expenses to that in the near future?
Loan Dusty Road fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Aug 26, 2015 |
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Aug 26, 2015 01:06
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I don't have a ton of other expenses to be honest - no car, I walk to work. Stuff like clothing, cab/train fare, and others I've been lumping under recreation for now.
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Aug 26, 2015 04:24
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What about emergency fund, retirement, birthdays, holidays (xmas, mothers/fathers day, etc.), medical (copays, medication - I'm relatively young and healthy so I only put $20 a month into this for example), house hold goods... You can say you lump them into other categories, but that usually makes for a pretty lovely December if you celebrate xmas and put up a few hundred in gifts and end up with zero recreation and have to cut into food, etc, or worse, your savings, for example. If this is your first budget, it's a good start, but you'll want to start looking at your annual expenses and then divide those by 12 months.
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Aug 26, 2015 07:09
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Thanks for the advice. I have been basing it off my expenses for the last couple months, and for the items you've mentioned (medical, gifts, holidays, etc) I haven't really had any expenses for those in that time period, but your point that it matters more in certain parts of the year is a good one. My emergency fund is good to go currently, and I contribute to my 401k. I have a maxed Roth IRA for 2015, and then after I pay my student loans this year the $1200 allocated for them is going to next year's IRA and savings.
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Aug 26, 2015 16:14
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Might as well throw mine up here, I've been using this budget for about 5 months.code:edit: I fund my IRA out of taxable assets at the beginning of the year. Xenoborg fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Aug 26, 2015 |
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Aug 26, 2015 21:11
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I'm readjusting my budget after saving and paying for a wedding which threw everything off whack for a few months and I've been slowly slipping into bad spending habits. I've accounted for fixed outgoings which account for a large proportion of my budget and flexible monthly expenses such as groceries, eating out, fuel etc. I'm now wondering what to do about non-regular or non-necessary purchases. I have been monitoring them using a virtual envelope system - basically a spreadsheet for each category and a separate bank account to keep these clear from my day to day expenditure. Is this the best way to do it or should I consider another method? The rest is going into various savings pots. Just to note, I share some expenses with my husband so some things are missing. He pays for water, council tax, cable/internet and home insurance and my 'rent' payment is more than our actual rent to cover some of the additional costs. Also my income amount is take home pay after contributions towards a pension. Income: 2279 Essentials Rent: 400 Gas/electricity: 54 Phone: 30 Car expenses: 49 Fuel: 100 Pet insurance: 19 Professional dues: 31 Daily living: Groceries: 250 Eating out: 80 Other household: 25 Fun money: Eating out/socialising: 80 Beauty/personal: 25 Films/TV: 21 Books: 10 Savings Emergency fund: 250 ISA: 400 Travel: 200 Irregular expenses: 230* Total outgoings: 2254 *This includes car maintenance costs, gifts/christmas spending, clothing and haircuts, additional pet costs not covered by insurance and some additional professional subscription costs. I currently have approximately £11000 in savings towards a house deposit, plus ~£800 as 'emergency back up' and/or holidays. I don't have an appreciable emergency fund yet as most savings have been going towards the wedding and house deposit, however I have clear lines of credit for an actual emergency. Savings numbers are flexible, and will still be largely going towards the house for a few months until we are ready to buy, but after that I assume I'll need to split up my savings into household maintenance savings and long term emergency fund. How much should I be working towards for those? I may also need to replace my car relatively soon. I own it outright but it's probably only worth £1000 or so. It's not on its last legs yet, but I can forsee needing a new(er) car within the next year.
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Sep 7, 2015 14:41
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Why does it matter that an expense is irregular if it's expected? Determine how much you want to spend on each thing over the course of the year and then budget that amount divided by 12 each month . How you keep track of the money doesn't really matter, both a spreadsheet and separate bank accounts seems overkill, but whatever works. If you need a new car within a year, why are you not budgeting for it? It's in the past, but the same question is applicable to the wedding. You basically mention it in the first paragraph, but your budget only accounts for fixed monthly expenses and budgeting only that won't work. Very few expenses are unexpected so you should look back at your spending over the past year or two and either budget for the irregular stuff or cut it.
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Sep 7, 2015 18:24
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asur posted:Why does it matter that an expense is irregular if it's expected? Determine how much you want to spend on each thing over the course of the year and then budget that amount divided by 12 each month . How you keep track of the money doesn't really matter, both a spreadsheet and separate bank accounts seems overkill, but whatever works. If you need a new car within a year, why are you not budgeting for it? It's in the past, but the same question is applicable to the wedding. You basically mention it in the first paragraph, but your budget only accounts for fixed monthly expenses and budgeting only that won't work. Very few expenses are unexpected so you should look back at your spending over the past year or two and either budget for the irregular stuff or cut it. Sorry I might have been unclear, that is what I have been doing. I have budgeted for irregular but expected expenses by figuring out how much they are likely to be per year and getting a monthly total to save up for them. I've just lumped them all together here to avoid writing out a huge list of expenses. I've figured out a total for all of those things (which is where the 230/month comes from - it all goes into one separate bank account) and I use a spreadsheet to track how much I have for each category. Overkill to track it in a spreadsheet too? Maybe, but it helps me keep track better than if I just see an overall total in the bank account. I suppose it's a bit like YNAB (which I tried but didn't really get on with), all that money is allocated to specific things. I like having these types of expenses separate from my regular monthly expenses. I think particularly because I like to sweep any remaining money each month into savings (I just move any balance > 0 on the evening before payday) which would be harder to do if it was all in the same account. Also some of my savings accounts are not fixed - I have one for travel/holidays which generally covers the holidays that I take but if something unexpected happens or I realise I'm going to overspend on something, I will dip into that money. It's only holidays that take a hit which I love taking, but are non essential and I can cut back on if I need to. I used previous savings for wedding expenses - what is currently down as going into an ISA or emergency savings was used to save for the wedding and house deposit, but obviously the wedding is all paid for now and I think I have all the deposit I'll need. Future ISA savings will go towards house buying costs until that actually happens. I haven't done anything about saving for a car up until now because I was prioritising the above wedding and house buying savings and to be perfectly honest just didn't really factor it in! Obviously the wedding had a hard time limit to save for, and we set a deadline of November this year to have our house deposit ready. In the past I've just got a loan out to pay for the car - I haven't bought a car over £4000 so it hasn't been a huge monthly outlay. I'm not sure what to do this time around, go for a cheap-ish personal loan again, get a nicer/newer car on some other finance scheme or bigger loan... the loan rate I can get now would only be decent if I get >£7000 (18% under that vs 5% over) I'm not sure exactly how much buying a house is going to cost, there are loads of variables we don't know yet. It is quite possible that some of my current and future savings can be put towards a car deposit (or paying for one in full). I could start budgeting some of the savings towards a car deposit, or I could start factoring in a car loan payment at some stage... it would just mean that the money I have to put towards savings take a hit. I'm not sure how much to put towards this at present, any advice?
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Sep 7, 2015 19:14
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Hello financial gurus. I'm going to post up my new budget to check if I'm missing anything or if my numbers are super ridiculous. A little about our financial situation. We're a 3 person household - myself, my husband, and our 3 year old son. My husband and I both work at the same company and we both make around the same amount - $1300 net paid every other Friday. We live in Southern California. We are moving from a house to an apartment this Friday, so this is the reason I'm re-doing my budget. That and I was spurred into action by the Blue Story poo poo show. I like to work in round numbers on the budget, but I use the real amounts when actually balancing my check book. The net pay is a round down, all bills are rounded up. I have $1k in savings and anything extra each month will go to pay off CC debt. I have about $7500 to go from $30K. We both have a 401k that we do full match on. Check 1: 1st-15th, $2600 net (I use this check to pay for any bills due the 16th-31st) code:-The Electric is based on the bill I had at our house. I'm sure it will be less at the new apt, since it's a smaller sqft. I'll adjust this over the next few months to reflect a more accurate bill. -The cost of gas is for both our cars. He fills up about 3 times a week now. I suspect this amount will also lessen once we see the real numbers after the move since we're now closer to our respective work locations. -Any extra from rounding down the pay checks and rounding up the bills will go to CC debt as well. So for example, if electric is only 100, the extra 50 will be put into the CC. -Misc includes all eating out, gifts, luxury purchases (pedicures, videogames, etc), entertainment, dr copays, rx copays, etc Check 2: 16th - 31st, $2600 net (used to pay bills due the 1st - 15th) code:My biggest "issue" with the budget is the Misc category. It's a lot of money, a total of $600 a month between the two of us. I don't know that we'll even use all of that but since this is a new budget I gave us a pretty good wiggle room because I don't want to break the budget. I'd rather start out with too much and then whittle down if we're consistently under. However, I do plan to take whatever is not spend in Misc and put it toward the CC debt unless specifically being saved for a large purchase (concert tickets or whatever). So how deluded am I? Am I over looking any expenses? Under budgeting anything obvious?
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Sep 15, 2015 07:24
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I find it hard to believe grocery is so minimal for a family of three. Are there a bunch of lunches eating out hiding in the misc category? One of the easiest ways to reduce debt is to realize that restaurant food is expensive, damned expensive, as is designer coffee compared to cheap stuff at work, etc. Be careful about sending everything to the CC. For example, you have only $1k in savings. What is its purpose? Say you send all spare to CC and then there's a cold winter; how will you cover the increased electric bill? Reducing credit card debt as quickly as possible is a fine goal... until you end up having to put something on the CC because you didn't plan ahead. Think about it a different way: Is your money going to good use? Suppose you kept $50 saved for electric instead of putting it on the CC. How much longer would it take to pay off the CC, and how much would you be paying in interest? If your balance is $7500 paying $700/mo, it might feel good, but if it's reduced your overall security, it may not be worth it. Use an online payoff calculator. No toys for the kid, medical, auto maintenance... that all comes from the $1k? How does it get replenished if it's used? Also, do you pay fortnightly insurance, monthly, or six month's at a time? The latter usually saves you money.
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Sep 15, 2015 22:36
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Not number specific, but formatting question. I'm curious about other budgetors' opinions on how specific to make their categories. I've been keeping a spreadsheet of my expenses for the past few months to just observe where money is going - no sweeping lifestyle changes are planned yet because things are comfy for now. But after trying to make my spreadsheet into monthly pie charts (I love chart-y visuals) it turns into just a bunch of noise because I have nearly 30 freaking lines under expenses, and 6 lines for income. I just like being super duper specific, I guess! Is there a downside to being too specific with budget categories? Do people tend to prefer one giant category for "discretionary" vs what I have been doing: personal care, shopping, outings, gaming, netflix, gifts, vacation, subscriptions.... those are all mostly discretionary by definition but I feel like they'd be a pretty hefty nondescript pie chart chunk if I combined them. Here is the sidebar part of my budget spreadsheet, and for reference my topbar headers are Jan-Dec, and then at the end is "total", "average", and (ideal/proposed) "budget" for each category.
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Sep 15, 2015 23:35
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I find it hard to believe grocery is so minimal for a family of three. Are there a bunch of lunches eating out hiding in the misc category? One of the easiest ways to reduce debt is to realize that restaurant food is expensive, damned expensive, as is designer coffee compared to cheap stuff at work, etc. I live in Southern California so winters are mild. While it can get cold, my husband and I rarely use the heater. The gas utility is the one that would be impacted. Living in our house, the bills in winter never went over 20 dollars. Now we're moving to a smaller place that has shared walls with other people. I don't expect an increase in that bill. However if it does, I'll adjust that category accordingly. Toys for kid come from Misc category. We don't buy him a lot outside of Christmas and his birthday. Medical is paid out of our paycheck, so it's already deducted when I'm listing our net. We don't go to the doctor too often but office co-pays are 10 bucks. Rx copay is 10 bucks. We usually get a 3 month supply for that amount. Those fees can come out of Misc no problem. I have car maintenence and registration listed under the 2nd check. 200 bucks a car for registration, two cars. 400 split into 12 months = 35 a month, then 100 for maintenence each month. This will roll continuously so that when maintenence is required I can pull from that instead of the 1k. The 1k is there for emergencies. The 1k is as recommended by Dave Ramsey. I could make it more though if you think that would be good. Car insurance is 280 every 2 months. Renters is 55 every 3 months. 600 for groceries is more than enough for us. My son doesn't eat a lot as he's small. My husband and take our lunches to work, usually granola bars and sandwiches.
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Sep 16, 2015 02:05
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Dear Prudence posted:... Most recommendations for emergency funds will be one to six months. When you're actively paying off notable debt, having six months' expenses saved for emergencies is likely to be excessive. On the other side, having less than one month covered suggests you can't even float a paycheck going missing in the mail, having car trouble that prevents you from getting to the bank, whatever might be the case. And please don't counter with, "That can't ever happen because...", because it will. drat Bananas posted:Not number specific, but formatting question. I'm curious about other budgetors' opinions on how specific to make their categories. I've been keeping a spreadsheet of my expenses for the past few months to just observe where money is going - no sweeping lifestyle changes are planned yet because things are comfy for now. But after trying to make my spreadsheet into monthly pie charts (I love chart-y visuals) it turns into just a bunch of noise because I have nearly 30 freaking lines under expenses, and 6 lines for income. I just like being super duper specific, I guess! Is there a downside to being too specific with budget categories? Do people tend to prefer one giant category for "discretionary" vs what I have been doing: personal care, shopping, outings, gaming, netflix, gifts, vacation, subscriptions.... those are all mostly discretionary by definition but I feel like they'd be a pretty hefty nondescript pie chart chunk if I combined them. Here is the sidebar part of my budget spreadsheet, and for reference my topbar headers are Jan-Dec, and then at the end is "total", "average", and (ideal/proposed) "budget" for each category.  Your categories don't seem excessive to me. My budget divides income into 31 different expense accounts, and there are other accounts beyond those.You can't "retroactively add categories", at least not with ease (and a big box of old receipts); ergo, having more categories in an operating budget (and expense report) is the better choice as it permits you to chunk/bucketize as needed for reporting. If you marked everything as "Other" for six months, it's going to be nearly impossible to answer the question, "How much did I spend on (what has now apparently become my new vice,) designer personal hair products?" because your CFCs would be indistinguishable from all those $12 mochas you drank.  You, therefore, don't want only a single "extras" category, particularly if you're having difficulty limiting spending in one area. On the other hand, if you have too many categories, it becomes increasingly complicated to budget because you have to "loan yourself money" when you decide that you really want to spend more money on Books_Clancy_Tom this month than on Books_Steel_Danielle.As long as you understand the different between "Restaurants, bars", "Groceries", and "Outings", there should be no trouble. I just realized that there was probably a good conversation about this in the first few pages of the thread and... yeap, there it is. And you were there too! tl;dr: Lots of good stuff at the start of the thread but I'm obviously biased
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Sep 16, 2015 03:11
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Personally I like the budget 2 pays part month and then using the bonus checks for fun, presents, debt, whatever. It is a fun way to do it. Makes you live on less too. My only worry with only 1k savings is that you both work at the same place.
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Sep 16, 2015 03:28
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:You got me: Having two separately fortnightly budgets was too complicated for a reader using a cellular phone on a bus. Dumb phones. You can handle 26, biweekly paychecks with a monthly budget using percentage budgeting; see the OP. In fact, read the first few pages of the thread; there are the ever-classic posts about Oeconomicus, Pacioli, some notions of charity (from 1845!) and so forth. As long as you can save money, it is to your advantage to keep some around in categories for emergencies. I did read the OP but to be honest, the advanced budgeting stuff kind of did my head in. I'll go back and read it again but I saw "percentage" and things started oozing out of my ears. As far as savings, I'll go ahead and start putting in more to get at least one month of pay covered and then start socking into the CC debt. spwrozek posted:Personally I like the budget 2 pays part month and then using the bonus checks for fun, presents, debt, whatever. It is a fun way to do it. Makes you live on less too. Yeah, when I think about just doing a one month budget it kind of gives me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I don't like to leave things in limbo for that long and hope it works out. I'd rather micromanage my money each check and I balance the checkbook every week to make sure things are clearing and everything adds up. We do work for the same company, but it is a very large company with thousands of employees and millions of customers. It certainly wont go under without serious repercussions and lots of forewarning so that's good. We also work at different offices. Our new apt is just a half mile from my office, but it's still about 20 miles from his.
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Sep 16, 2015 05:02
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drat Bananas posted:Not number specific, but formatting question. I'm curious about other budgetors' opinions on how specific to make their categories. I've been keeping a spreadsheet of my expenses for the past few months to just observe where money is going - no sweeping lifestyle changes are planned yet because things are comfy for now. But after trying to make my spreadsheet into monthly pie charts (I love chart-y visuals) it turns into just a bunch of noise because I have nearly 30 freaking lines under expenses, and 6 lines for income. I just like being super duper specific, I guess! Is there a downside to being too specific with budget categories? Do people tend to prefer one giant category for "discretionary" vs what I have been doing: personal care, shopping, outings, gaming, netflix, gifts, vacation, subscriptions.... those are all mostly discretionary by definition but I feel like they'd be a pretty hefty nondescript pie chart chunk if I combined them. Here is the sidebar part of my budget spreadsheet, and for reference my topbar headers are Jan-Dec, and then at the end is "total", "average", and (ideal/proposed) "budget" for each category. A misc or discretionary budget category that is not further broken out is a terrible idea if you are trying to reduce spending as it lets you spend on anything and shove it in that category. I'd make your budget as detailed as possible, but group similar items together under a higher category and for the monthly pie charts make them with the higher categories.
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Sep 16, 2015 06:51
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drat Bananas posted:Not number specific, but formatting question. I'm curious about other budgetors' opinions on how specific to make their categories. I've been keeping a spreadsheet of my expenses for the past few months to just observe where money is going - no sweeping lifestyle changes are planned yet because things are comfy for now. But after trying to make my spreadsheet into monthly pie charts (I love chart-y visuals) it turns into just a bunch of noise because I have nearly 30 freaking lines under expenses, and 6 lines for income. I just like being super duper specific, I guess! Is there a downside to being too specific with budget categories? Do people tend to prefer one giant category for "discretionary" vs what I have been doing: personal care, shopping, outings, gaming, netflix, gifts, vacation, subscriptions.... those are all mostly discretionary by definition but I feel like they'd be a pretty hefty nondescript pie chart chunk if I combined them. Here is the sidebar part of my budget spreadsheet, and for reference my topbar headers are Jan-Dec, and then at the end is "total", "average", and (ideal/proposed) "budget" for each category. I split out monthly bills from monthly expenses. Otherwise we have similar items, more or less.
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Sep 16, 2015 07:02
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I built a Google Docs form to enter all purchases to, and it links to a Google doc spreadsheet with my monthly budgets. It's really helped for seeing where I spend my money, and also makes it kind of fun going in and analyzing my spending habits. My restaurant eating got wiped out by one meal at the beginning of the month, so no more restaurants until October! I built a form and spreadsheet for my fiancé so she can get a better hold on finances as well. Has anyone else done something similar? I track everything down to the 50 cent juice box etc
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Sep 16, 2015 14:42
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I just realized that there was probably a good conversation about this in the first few pages of the thread and... yeap, there it is. And you were there too! Ahaha how embarrassing. I completely forgot about that conversation, and I don't think I even have that old budget spreadsheet anymore. I guess I've always been a second guesser! As an update, these days I do count concessions as part of the "entertainment" (now referred to as "outings") activity because going in and splitting receipts is a pain in the rear end. That is also why I lump restaurants and bars together, because when we go drinking it usually starts with bar food as dinner. Thanks for the feedback all, it's reassuring to know when you're on a good track. Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 14:58
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Massasoit posted:
I have every dollar tracked and categorized for the last 3 years in a spreadsheet. I also track all my debt each month. It is nice to see where I spend my money. This year I have spent too much on fun money, already over 10k... Ouch
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Sep 16, 2015 16:16
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Massasoit posted:I built a Google Docs form to enter all purchases to, and it links to a Google doc spreadsheet with my monthly budgets. I also have a Google form for expenditures that plugs into an expansive set of spreadsheets. I have sheets for income which tally up my (easy) one monthly salaried paycheck along with my (much more complicated) significant other's three variable paychecks per month from two jobs along with tips received daily (he's a bartender). That total auto feeds into the next month's budget sheet as available funds. The "remaining" budget column from one month directly populates the "carried over" column on the next month's sheets. It took a while to set up, but now it is a thing of beauty. It came to be when my SO thought YNAB wasn't worth the money and I thought it wasn't flexible enough. Mine works on similar philosophies and structure, but customized for us.
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Sep 19, 2015 00:42
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Hey minor victory, turns out if I include my 401k it offsets my student loans and I'm actually in the black  (by $92 but still)  Unfortunately I think next month will be new car time so I'll be back to where I started but I mean like, hey, gonna enjoy being worth more than 0 dollars while it lasts.
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Oct 1, 2015 01:52
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Hello everyone, it's been a year and two weeks since I started my first job out of college, and budgeting was vital for me for the first 6 months when I made the mistake of getting a 2br apartment for just myself with $1500/month rent. After I moved I got lazy with budgeting because it was easy to simply not overspend, but of course that meant I wasn't really saving much money either. Back when I was with Bank of America, they had this "keep the change" transfer to savings every so often that was based on the remainder to the next dollar on each transaction. That led me to round up whenever I entered my transaction, but sometimes also include the savings transfers, so it quickly became a mere approximation of my money, and it's hard to shake that feeling now even though I'm entering everything accurately. Oh well, as long as I err on the side of underestimating my assets it shouldn't be a problem. So, here we go. Not the most organized budget, but it gets the job done. Yesterday was my first paycheck with a 401(k) contribution, $100 pre-tax and $50 Roth, and I'll be doing more once I've saved my liquid 3 months' income. Naturally my budget is a bit skewed what with the massive expense that is SCUBA training, but I usually have a large irregular expense every month or two that I make a category for, e.g. planning on a new phone soon. This was by far the biggest though, and I'm definitely planning on saving a larger portion of income next month onward. I'm mainly wondering if I spend too much on going out to eat.  Notes: Head is my budget word for weed and weed accessories, and Gay Ben is my video games budget. Impulse is my buffer zone for any sort of miscellaneous unplanned spending, or something that I get talked into on the spot, as well as things like little subscriptions that I didn't realize I hadn't canceled. I'm working on not letting that happen. "Spending money" is miscellaneous walking around money that I take out as cash, but I typically use it for weed anyway, or for stuff I would put under vacation, so I'm not sure if I really need it.
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Oct 17, 2015 20:21
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Chase no longer lets Mint auto-import your information anymore. I'm so mad. I finally got everything settled how I want it after like 4 months of tweaking. Nearly all of my & my husbands finances are through Chase somehow. Blowwwwwwwws. 
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Oct 20, 2015 23:36
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Proprietary tooling.  Is it possible to export from Chase, and perhaps to import something else (that) into Mint?
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Oct 20, 2015 23:48
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Proprietary tooling. Yes it is possible. I haven't been able to update my chase credit cards in quicken for a few days, so I googled... Chase is rolling out an update this weekend that should fix all Intuit connections. https://qlc.intuit.com/announcements/1243684
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Oct 21, 2015 03:48
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Stinky_Pete posted:Hello everyone, it's been a year and two weeks since I started my first job out of college, and budgeting was vital for me for the first 6 months when I made the mistake of getting a 2br apartment for just myself with $1500/month rent. After I moved I got lazy with budgeting because it was easy to simply not overspend, but of course that meant I wasn't really saving much money either. Back when I was with Bank of America, they had this "keep the change" transfer to savings every so often that was based on the remainder to the next dollar on each transaction. That led me to round up whenever I entered my transaction, but sometimes also include the savings transfers, so it quickly became a mere approximation of my money, and it's hard to shake that feeling now even though I'm entering everything accurately. Oh well, as long as I err on the side of underestimating my assets it shouldn't be a problem. Why are your categories fluctuating so much month to month? You aren't budgeting as much as you're tracking your spending. What is covered in the $190 for fitness? A gym membership is $30. Also, giving cash it's own category is stupid. You should track cash withing your other categories. Why the blank place for car payment? Are you paying for insurance? You could be saving a lot more. Also, what part of the country do you live in? Do you have an SO? Do you seriously not have a phone plan? il serpente cosmico fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 05:55
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I've got a bank that allows unlimited transfers between checking accounts, the ability to schedule transfers, and no minimum balance / low balance penalties. I'm pretty terrible at keeping track of my spending and budgeting consistently. I want to set up a bunch of checking accounts for at least the major categories (rent, utilities, insurance payments, debt reduction, groceries, gas, maybe other stuff I'm not thinking of), so that if I want to know how much I have to spare, I can just look at my balance and see what I have. Would that be a way to translate the envelope method to someone who uses a card for everything? I've come to accept that at least until my credit card gets paid off, I can't use it anymore. I was using it for gas and groceries because it's got 3% cashback on groceries and 2% on gas, but I end up overspending on groceries pretty often. Having an actual limit on it will help me build good grocery-buying habits.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:06
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That sounds like an over draft waiting to happen with a dozen different accounts to track. If your bank is making those a "virtual" account then that's not so bad. Like you have $1000 in checking but you'll see $300 in rent, $300 car payment, $400 food. If you overspend on your food you'd be in the negative for the "food" account but your overall checking account balance would handle that. My ultimate suggestion is to use budgeting software to be that virtual account and spend to your budget. YNAB is my personal choice.
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Oct 28, 2015 19:23
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I've got a Mint, but I haven't had good results, like I said.. My current account is set up to deny in the case that it would overdraft, but I'll check to make sure that will stay the same. I'll see if I can get a virtual account set up.
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Oct 28, 2015 23:14
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Yeah mint is not really a good budgeting tool imo. Ynab is great if you can spare the dosh to buy it.
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Oct 28, 2015 23:42
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