Sorry, this got a bit longer than I intended. Thanks if you read it!
With the baby on the way, I'm taking a bit of a closer look at our finances and trying to cut some corners and streamline some things to reduce debt and up our savings. I created a budget spreadsheet using my yearly expenses for 2012 from Mint.com divided by 12, as a start. I then tracked everything really closely in January and will tweak the budget in each category a bit as we go.
My question is this: If you use an actual budget spreadsheet, do you include any automatic payments as part of the budget?
For example: H has a truck payment that basically comes directly out of his check. The amount is direct deposited into his credit union account (as opposed to our Wells Fargo joint accounts), and then immediately paid toward the payment.
Would you include the truck direct deposit amount in the income line, and add the auto payment as a budget line item?
Other examples include the amounts that we have direct deposited to our various ING savings accounts. Would you total all of that up and include it in the paycheck line and then have each of these deposits as a budget line item?
The savings ones seem a bit more troublesome because, as as example we have $100 per pay period that is deposited to checking and then transferred automatically to savings (to avoid a monthly fee). Often times this $100 ends up being transferred back to checking at some point during the month and being used for additional debt payment or otherwise. So then the expense is sort of counted twice, if I count is as a Savings line item and then as a Debt Payment line item, right?
Post by cricketwife on Feb 2, 2013 18:06:19 GMT -5
I personally would do a line item for everything so that you know where your money is going. It sounds like you need/want to keep better tract and that's the best way. The fact that you're having money autotransferred and autopaid doesn't mean that it's not part of your cash flow, it is.
As for the savings, if you put $100 in your budget as going to savings, it must STAY in savings. If you transfer it to savings and then take it out to pay a bill in the same month, the savings line item needs to read "0" for that month, because you didn't actually save anything. Or, you could leave it as going to savings and then deduct it from your spreadsheet of savings to pay another bill. But no, your income did not put $100 into savings AND pay a $100 bill with the same money.
You may want to do a projected budget and actual budget for each month so that you can see how well your actual spending habits are lining up with what you budget to spend each month.
Post by yellowbrkrd on Feb 2, 2013 18:09:07 GMT -5
I would want it all in my budget because I like seeing everything. But really, I think it's preference.
We set aside "savings" for things like the dogs, haircuts, x-mas, gifts, vehicle maintenance, etc. Each month that money is put into savings and recorded in my spreadsheet (both the monthly budget and my separate savings spreadsheet). If we spend money from one of those categories it comes out of savings and the amount is removed from the savings spreadsheet. I hope that makes sense because I'm having a hard time explaining it.
I ended up deciding to leave the total income amounts in, including the amounts auto-deposited to the ING savings accounts. However I removed the line item for the $100 transfer to savings since it rarely stays there.
yellowbrkrd I like the idea of keeping a separate spreadsheet for the savings accounts. I'm also hoping to be better about saving throughout the year for things like auto registration and a spreadsheet of that sort would be helpful. Currently we have separate accounts for E-fund and my contract job taxes only.