From January 1 until May 31, 2009, Jon and I recorded our daily spending in a handy-dandy low-tech budget book. We’ve never set spending limits in any particular category, and we even stopped using it June-August because it’s super tough to collect receipts (and give a crap) while traveling. It was a great break from the structure, but as of September 1, I vowed to restart these tabulations. Tally ho! (get it?)
Today I looked at our average monthly spending from the first five months of the year, and set forth a slightly more prudent “goal” (read: limit) for each of the dozen-ish categories below. It’s easy to be honest about our habits, and make “cuts” from future spending, when I can actually SEE what we spent without limits beyond daily common sense. Time to tighten things up a bit. Eek.
So, here is our “new” outline, with the sum total projected spending about $500 less than monthly income - just in case something crazy happens. Which it always does. Heaven forbid a buck or two gets saved. Ha.
- Rent/mortgage: 42%
- Groceries/lunches: 11%
- Cell phones/Cable/Internet/Electric: 6%
- Gifts/Donation: 6%
- Dining Out: 6%
- Entertainment: 6%
- Auto insurance/Gasoline/PublicTransit: 5%
- Clothing, laundry, bath/rx, post office: 5%
- Home/Office + School/texts: 5%
- Travel, Misc.: 4% ea.
- BREWING :) 3%
Obviously, we’re still having plenty of fun, even though “organized finances” can sound like a vicious kill-switch on spending solely for pleasure. It’s not - I promise! Clearly, we’re not leading the most horribly restricted lifestyle.
I can’t recommend more highly SOME type of daily-spending-record-keeping for you and/or whoever you spend money with. Googledocs has a free detailed budget template, and pen-and-paper logs exist a-plenty. When you’re just getting started, keep the book near an easy-to-find place where you’ll pass everyday (like the coffee table, next to bed, wherever you throw your keys) and just ask yourself what you spent, ONCE a day. It takes 3 seconds to jot down. Then, at the end of the month, it’s about 20 minutes to add it all up and review. Easy as pie! Do it!
