Over the past six years, since I have lived on my own, I have had so many different spreadsheets and budget plans. At one point in time I was trying the ‘envelope system’ where I kept all of my receipts and tracked my monthly spending this way. It worked for a while but eventually I got tired of carrying around a big bulky envelope with packed receipts (especially at the end of the month). Over time and trying out different things I finally I found the budget plan that has worked best for us.
Getting married and moving in together was a transition in its own way. Combining income and finances as well as each learning how the other dealt with money took some time. I am more of the ‘write it down’ and document your spending, while TJ is more of the ‘its online in our bank statement.’ Luckily we are both savers and are smart when it comes to our finances (so thankfully thats not an issue we have to deal with!) Over a few months time TJ worked with me and molded toward my way of keeping a real up to date record of our monthly spending. I included a copy of a sample budget in this post that is very similar to the one that TJ and I use. I hope it helps to inspire some of you who are looking to get on track with your budgeting skills.
^ This is an example of the budget system that we use. This is a two-person budget but if you are living off one budget you will obviously make the necessary changes.
First, you need to list down all of your monthly expenses. In the next column you will write how much each cost you per month (ex: gas $150/m) For the items that fluctuate you can put an estimated cost.
As you can see in column four, under February, I only have a few items listed. As we start to pay our bills during the month, I add it into our spreadsheet. This way TJ and I both know what has been paid already and what hasn’t. At the end of the month the whole column will be full.
At the end of the month I add up what TJ and I earned and enter that in the area labeled ‘Actual Earned’. After adding in all of your spending for the month, you will subtract ‘Actual Spent from Actual Earned’. This is what you have left at the end of the month to save or in our case, pay off our student loans!
^ This part is not something required to include in your budget, it is just something I find helpful to keep a detailed track of. I like to see what months we spent more on food and keep track of our miscellaneous spending. For this section, I actually save my receipts. I enter them in next to the appropriate date (Ex: on the 18th I went to A&P and spent $18- I enter this in the spreadsheet on the day marked May 18). At the end of the month I add up our total for food, in this case $424 and add it to my main spreadsheet for food costs that month.
I always prepare a few months ahead in our spreadsheet so when the first of the month comes rolling around, we are all set to go!
I hope that you found our budgeting system to be helpful! For anyone that would like a copy of this excel document, feel free to leave a comment with your email address and I will email you a copy that you can amend and apply to your own spending!
Leave a Reply