Wednesday, September 22, 2010

My Budget Plan, It might work for you

I know once you here the word's Debt and Finance's we run like the plague is over taking our world. It's the one thing that can end marriages, relationships and your overall composure. I'm going to start posting my new debt and budget regime on Wednesday's because I'm over wordless Wednesday's. They are boring the Frack out me. 

So, the hubbs and I make some real decent money. You go through the motions and then at the end of the year, you look at your income level and wonder to yourself where the hell did all that money go. When you start to think about it, you become baffled. There are times when I'm rolling in it and embarrassingly enough their are times when I'm flat ass broke. I'm sure we can all relate to this roller coaster bank account balance. I'm tired of just paying bills and then spending the rest after bills on whatever we feel like for the remainder of the time till we get paid. It's a waste on nothing but bullshit. To be quite Blunt. 

So, instead of arguing and yelling at each other the crap that we both buy, or who went to lunch and how much I spend at whatever, I decided to make a very distinct budget and cut out extra spending for now. We have credit card debt, like every damn person on the planet. It's not an obscene amount, but its decent. 

The Budget on Paper:

1. Made excel spreadsheet with all our bills and the amount's they are (including their due dates).
2. Added other expenses, like how much we SHOULD be spending on groceries, household items, entertainment, Beer fund, and Eating out, Gas, Daycare, kid stuff. 
(Beer Fund WTF!, I know I have to give the hubs a budget for beer, or there is no motivation or interest in any of the overall budget. It's a tactic to get the men gender to listen. It's worked so far.)
3. Figure out the amount of your paychecks for the month. 

Savings:

1. You need to save at least $1,000 in your saving's account before you can do the actual budget plan I'm doing. So, the amount after everything is budgeted.. including: bills and expenses for the month are paid for, the left over monies get deposited into your saving's account. 

2. Once you have reached the goal of $1,000 in saving's you then take that left over amount after your expenses and bills are planned out and that that amount goes to paying off your debt.  (if you have any.) If you have no debt, then you are a god, and I want to know how you do it. 

3. You keep doing this until your debt is paid off. Phew! After the debt is paid off then you go back to saving's. But you don't have to do the whole amount, but set an certain amount per month to send to saving's. 

Cash & Envelopes:

1. Make envelopes for all of your expenses. 
Ex.  Envelopes 
a. Gas
b. Groceries
c. Household's
d. Ian's Beer Fund (in my case)
e. Entertainment
f. Eating out

2. Once you have made the envelopes you pull out the cash for each expense and put it into the envelope. 
(Take the figure from your budget plan. Since we get paid twice a month, I take that amount and divide it in half and that is the amount I get in cash every paycheck.)

3. Once your envelopes are loaded with the cash, the rest of the money in your account is for the bills you budgeted for. Then you use the cash in the envelopes for your other expenses.

4. Once the cash runs out it's gone, if there is left over cash, you leave it and then your expense envelope has more the next time and so on.

Ok, If you are still reading at this point, you made it through my training sesh. I'm sorry, but there is a lot of wordiness to it when you try and explain it. It's really easy. If you are really interested in trying comment back or if it's private email me @ kristina.j.ruth@gmail.com 

My new motto is eff the credit card companies, because they don't care about me. :)

Happy Saving's! 

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