How to Make and Stick to a Budget

This is our budget book.  We've been using it for 15 months with great success.

I often tell you about the budget meetings my husband and I have in my Ways I Saved posts, and I wanted to share with you our budgeting method.  I also thought it would be helpful to give you some insights to the manner in which we live and how we came to this point.

When my husband and I first got married, we were both in school and working.  When I look back, I think it was insanity.  I commuted roughly 1 hour each way to and from my university and I rarely saw my husband more than 1 hour a night before I crashed and went to bed at 9:00 p.m.  I'd wake up at 4:00 a.m. and do it again the next day, while he stayed in town and worked full time and went to evening classes.

During this time, I realized how little money we truly had and I found all kinds of crazy budgeting websites.  Get rich quick never sat well with me, and the "write down all of your dreams and save money for them so you can do them" sounds great, but it wasn't very satisfying because we made so little money and realized very few of our dreams.  I would tell my husband ALL of these wonderful and not-so-wonderful ideas and overwhelm him with all of the things I wanted to do with our very humble earnings.  To sum it up:  We were NOT on the same page.  I wasn't even on the same page with myself!

After several years of just trying to live frugally and not really getting anywhere either good or bad, some of our dear friends told us about Dave Ramsey.  Dave Ramsey's plan is quite solid and has worked well for us, though we don't do everything exactly as he suggests.

I'd like to say that as soon as we found Dave Ramsey, that all of the financial turmoil ended, but that's not so.  It just made things easier than they would have been without his plan.  Out of the last nine years that we have been married, the last few months are the most financially successful months we've ever had.  We haven't had to worry so much, and we've been able to do some things for our home that we have not had money for previously in our marriage.  We are able to do these things because we are getting out of debt and slowly have more and more excess.  My husband's career is not one that societal standards would consider us to ever be wealthy or close to it, however, we feel confident that as we get out of debt, we will be able to do those things that we want to do.  Even if it takes a little longer than another person.  We feel very grateful for his wonderful job.

You may wonder in my Ways I Saved posts, "How is she saving if she is spending so much and buying so many things?"  I will tell you, I sometimes feel guilty after we do something nice for our home or selves because it's always been such a struggle in the past.  However, it is nice to be able to work on our debt and work on having a nice home.  Our current home is quite modest.  It will be nice to purchase a home someday, and put beautiful things in it that we carefully chose and purchased for good prices.

On to the actual budget and away from the history!

We have tried a lot of things throughout our marriage.  Goal lists (too vague and slow gratification), Excel spreadsheets (out of sight, out of mind), Quicken (the same as Excel.  I'm too lazy to get on the computer to notate every expense), Cash Envelope Systems (part of me likes the cash envelope system, part of me doesn't.  In the end, we've abandoned it due to too many categories in our budget), etc., etc., etc..  We have finally found what works for us in regards to the bookkeeping aspect of budgeting.  And it's simple.

We use a composition book to keep track of our total budget and a mini composition book to keep track of individual transactions and withdrawals from the categories of the budget.  That's it!

Let me take you through our budget book.

1.  I estimate my husband's income, so that I can plan for the month, but we adjust according to what money actually comes in.

2.  Write down your estimated expenses.  ALL of them!

TIPS:  Start your budget a week or two before the actual month in which it will be used.  Estimate high on things like utilities so that you are pleasantly surprised when they are lower than what you had assumed they would be.  If you work on your budget early, you probably won't blow through any excess you might get, and you can be more prepared and make cuts if your earnings are low.

Also, this is the time to determine whether any festivities, clothing, or any other non-repeating expenses need to be added in to the budget.

3.  Subtract the expenses from your earnings.  If you have excess, put it toward debt, savings, whatever you need.  We do our budget in a "Budget the money to $0" sort of fashion.  If you are short, you'll need to make adjustments to your budget.

4.  As your bills begin coming and once the money has left your bank account, mark the items as paid.  We very simply notate it to the left of the budget item.  If our monthly expenses have come out very differently, I might even write up a new one and write it as "Revised" so that I can compare it to the original.

Also, watch your bank account to make sure the correct amounts of money have been withdrawn.

5.  As some budget categories come in more or less than what you had calculated, cross the old total out and write in the new amount.  This is usually where you are happy that you budgeted high.  For example, my electric bill was $8 less than I thought it would be this month.  Woohoo!

6.  Determine what to do with any excess you may have from expenses coming through less expensive than you had thought.  Notate what it will go to.  TIP:  Sometimes we don't pay that excess to the category we decide on until the end of the month.  You never know what may happen.  We usually like to keep our Emergency Fund (Dave Ramsey suggests between $500-$1000) for those surprises, but I don't really like touching it if it just turns out that we need an extra $20 for this or that.  You could always leave some flexible money in your bank account, but that's up to you.

7.  DISCUSS, DISCUSS, DISCUSS!  Don't be long-winded if your spouse doesn't handle budgeting well, but a weekly budget meeting does wonders.  Especially if you have goals.  You can look at your budget book frequently and see what progress is being made, or pull in the reins before ruination has been inflicted.  My spouse doesn't really like writing up the budget too much.  I don't like it when he's not involved.  So!  I draw up the budgets, allot the money, then we discuss it.  I make him take a look at my math!  I simply don't want to be solely responsible for that.  Once we've discussed and agreed, we're done and we put the big budget book away.

The Mini Budget Book:

We use a mini composition book (I bought a three-pack at the Dollar Tree for $1 last week) to keep track of any categories of the budget that will have more than one withdrawal.  For example, the grocery, gasoline, and fun money categories.

We moved away from the cash envelopes last month and we are really enjoying this.  It seemed that if we didn't get the exact amount of cash for every category right from the start, money would begin to be withdrawn, but without us really knowing what was going where and how much money was still left in a budget and the question, "How much is left in X category?" was constantly being asked.  I also didn't like being responsible for all of that cash, and I wanted to be able to use my Target Red (debit) card without having to go put money back into the bank.  Lastly, it's night to be able to pay for several things in one transaction at the store, then divide them up in the mini composition book from looking at the receipt.

Here's what the inside looks like:

1.  Write in the Category and money allotted.  Each category should probably get its own page.

2.  As you spend money on items in these categories, notate with a subtraction sign and the dollar amount.  Occasionally write in the new total that you have to spend.

3.  Keep this book with you in your purse or car so that you can fill it in while you're out shopping.  Let your family members know when the money is gone from a category.  This may be easier said than done, but it is important for them to know.

If family members don't like budgeting at all, kindly and lovingly express its importance to you.  Write up a budget anyway and ask if they'd like to see it.  Quickly show them the path to freedom, achievements that could be had.  Whatever you do, other than possibly some fun money (which I believe is very healthy if you can afford it), DO NOT SPEND MONEY THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD.  It will not help your goals to say, "Well, S/He spent $X, so I'M going to spend that much too!"  I even believe that kindly and lovingly expressing your disappointment or discouragement is ok if it's becoming a serious problem.  The thing is, it has to be LOVING and KIND.  In this way, you can be true to yourself and your financial obligations.  Obviously, I don't know you or your situation, so take this paragraph with a grain of salt.

We have so much work left, but we've had great success this way.  We're continuing on our path to "Financial Freedom" and it feels good.  A good motivator is to look at the budget and imagine how much excess we would have if we didn't have to pay those debts.  Try it and you'll see!

How do you keep your budget?  Any tips you'd like to add?

De-Clutter and Make More Space: Throw Out DVD Cases!!

I once read of a couple that lived full-time in an RV, and in an effort to make space, got rid of all of their DVDs and DVD cases by tossing or recycling the cases, and downloading all of their movies onto an external hard drive.  I don't want all of our movies on a hard drive, but getting rid of the cases sounded awesome.  DVD/CD portfolio as a solution, anyone???

I tucked the idea away for future use and the knowledge became relevant last weekend when we updated our kiddos' room.  You see, we kept all of our DVDs in a beautiful vintage bench in the living room, but we wanted our daughter to be able to store her bedding inside--she uses the trundle bed of our daybed set which doesn't push under easily with all of her blankets on the mattress--after we moved the bench into their room.

Instead of finding a new place for all of those DVDs (we're trying to make EMPTY spaces, not fill up NEW spaces), we finally made the plunge and purchased a CD/DVD holder that fits 256 DVDs and filled up over two garbage bags with empty DVD cases.  It takes up less than one tenth of the space that all of the cases had and the kids love having another place to sit in their room.

Tips:

*  Make sure you purchase a case that will hold all of your DVDs and possibly have room to grow.

*  Take this opportunity to get rid of DVDs that are uninteresting to you, inappropriate, heavily scratched, unwanted, etc.  Donate or toss these DVDs and be happy for more free space!

*  If you don't organize your DVDs in your portfolio in some way, it may feel difficult to flip through.  We put children's movies together, workout DVDs together, etc.  You may want to go alphabetical, or by genre.

*  We have all 9 of the Seinfeld seasons and 7 of the The Office seasons.  Instead of putting them into the portfolio, we chose to leave them in their original cases as we didn't want to flip through that many DVDs to find the specific season and disc of the that season that we wanted, plus the cases actually have some information we enjoy.  You may want to consider doing the same with seasons.

With all of the space we've been de-cluttering, I feel so much more free!  It's a good feeling to know that unnecessary "stuff" is going away, leaving clear space.

FREE Printable Responsibility Chart

After all of the craziness of Halloween preparations and parties, I realized how tired our home was.  And when I am completely honest with myself, it goes back farther than that.  You see, we thought we were moving at the end of the summer, so half of our house was packed up.  We found out that we weren't moving right when we started homeschooling the kids, right when dance and swim started, and we have been so busy, busy, busy, that work on getting things unpacked and reorganized has been slow.

I've also been reminded that the clutter and disorganization takes up time and energy, which doesn't allow for much intentional living.  I like things orderly and planned with some fun spontaneity thrown in.  It has not been so in our house recently.

Over the weekend, we updated the kids' bedroom, and I cleaned up a lot of the garage.  This is a great start, but we need to maintain our hard work.  Also, my husband and I have felt that our children could be doing more in our home.  They could be contributing more for the sake of cleanliness, but also for the sake of character.  We also want them to learn to organize their time and efforts.

To aid us in our goals of raising our children and keeping house, my husband and I collaborated and came up with a Responsibility Chart.  After we decided what the list should include, I made a cute little printable for each child, stuck it in a sheet protector, and yesterday the children and I completed the tasks together.  Little Gal told me it was fun, and Little Guy stayed as focused as he could during all of the tasks.  He's a ham.  It's a little difficult for him to focus as he really just wants to be goofy all the time!

It made me happy to work through their routine with them.  I think it will especially help Little Gal to know that she can do a lot of things, which is something that she struggles with at times.  She gets that "I Can't" attitude and it's difficult for her to push through tasks sometimes.  I notice that the more responsibility she has, the less we hear that.  I think it will help Little Guy focus on getting tasks done.

I thought you might like to see our chart, but I've also included a free printable Responsibility Chart that has been left blank for your use.  I hope you enjoy!

Free Printable Blank Responsibility Chart

5 Tips for Organizing Kitchen Cupboards

I re-organized my food storage containers!!!  

One day I was looking up in the cupboard of ramekins, mugs, serving bowls, bread baskets, etc., etc., when the epiphany came to me.  These random items were in a very functional place that my food containers could be occupying.  About a week went by without a follow-up in the plan, when yesterday I was putting dishes away and noticed a whole bunch of food storage containers had been cleaned.  It was a "Now or Never" sort of moment, so I went for it!  

I ran into two problems, one of which I was unable to remedy.  The first problem is that I am quite short as am less than five feet, two inches tall.  Moving onward, friends.  The second problem is that the shelves in the cupboards I was dealing with were very high.  You know those top shelves that you usually only put holiday-themed platters and lesser used appliances in?

Well, to remedy the second problem, I grabbed my step ladder.  I sorted my containers so nicely, and thought I was done, when the light bulb came on. 

I needed to get off of the step ladder, and test reaching for what I could to make sure that I had put the important stuff in the front of the shelves.

Now, maybe everybody already does this, however, I thought I would share.  Just in case!  Once I was got off of the step ladder, I thought of several other food storage situations to consider.

Here are my 5 Tips for Organizing Kitchen Cupboards:

1.  When cleaning out a cupboard, evaluate your items and toss or donate items that you no longer use or want.  I found a lid to a container that I gave away several months ago.  Adios!

2.  Make sure that you keep like items together when possible.  For example, I keep my cooking spices and herbs separate from my baking spices.  It makes it easier to find if like items are together.  If I'm making banana bread, I grab the cinnamon that's next to the flour so that I don't have to dig through garlic, parsley, oregano and all of the other herbs and spices that I would generally cook with to find it.

3.  Look at your space (i.e. counters, shelves and cupboards) as if they were real estate.  I discovered that some prime real estate in my pantry was being used for curtains that were left here with the house, that are 100% NOT my style.  I can give them a different home and use that space more effectively.

4.  Do you have things that you only use seasonally?  Can you buy a plastic tote to store them in (or a shelf way up high) for those special occasions where you want to use them?  My kitchen is quite small, so I bought a tote and it's working out great!  It's stored in the garage.

5.  Lastly, when you organize higher shelves, get off of the step ladder and see how accessible items are when you are at your normal height.  I admit it!  I rarely pull out my step ladder.  I'm a pull-out-the-kitchen-tongs-to-reach-it sort of gal.  Can you reach all of the items that you want to be able to reach?  Are the most important things in the front?  Do you have too many rows of items that will be needed on a regular basis and that you won't want to pull down in order to reach the important stuff in the back?

Those would be my tips to a more organized kitchen.  What do you do?  Do you have any special tips?