Budgets=Amazing!
Posted: November 3, 2011 Filed under: budgets | Tags: budget, plan 2 CommentsOk so I’m currently working on my budget for this next two weeks. And it got me thinking about how much I love budgets. Do you read Budgets Are Sexy? You should if you don’t. I was catching up on some posts this week and I ran across: The Anti-Budget, Budget . I have to say I agree with J$–I used to do that same system of save and then spend the rest. What usually happened was me then breaking into that savings and needing to use it to help me get through the rest of the pay period. Never ending cycle of shame! (Okay shame might be a harsh word but I’m sticking with it)
For me—I budget in the predetermined amount I want to save and then what is needed to pay the bills. After that, it’s decided on personal money, additional savings and how much “misc.” money is available. Though again, our misc. money is actually listed out for the majority. For us the structure works really well—we pay our bills, pay our savings, pay ourselves
and then pay savings again. This week it might just be $5 extra dollars going into each of the savings but that’s $5 closer to our goals.
The structure works well for us because it allows us to “see” into the future–as much as possible. Again, he doesn’t make the exact same every week but I can average it out and normally it hits pretty close. We get an idea of how long it will take us to pay off a debt and I get to play with that time frame. For instance: I know that by end of March, you will be hearing me (Ok…maybe not hearing me unless you have a text converter but you get my drift 😉 ) say that I have a brand new bank account and will *never* overdraft again. I do plan on leaving a cushion to allow that statement to occur but I haven’t decided that amount yet. But if I did the anti-budget, this would not happen. At least, not for me. Maybe it works for others but I know for a fact it doesn’t work for me.
How do you do your budget? Do you budget first your bills or your savings? Are you in love with budgets? ( I swear I could do budgets all day!)
bogofdebt 
We budget debt repayment, bills and savings (just a tiny bit here), with bills taking priority if we have an unexpected income shortage. We also budget in a little just to blow – not much, but it helps keep us sane. Anytime we underspend in a category such as groceries or repairs, the extra goes to pay off our existing debt. We would budget more to savings, but we are focusing all of our efforts on debt repayment right now. If we have an emergency, we will pay the minimums for a month and be okay, so I’m not worried about not having much in savings at the moment.
We normally carry that excess money over into debt savings/savings–it really adds up after awhile.