Budget Advice/Support Thread

[katespade]

This is a free space for budget/financial advice and support.
Post as many or as few details as you feel comfortable posting, FLAME FREE.
Budgets, savings goals, questions, struggles, meal plans, grocery lists, advice, sale PSAs, etc.
We can either make this an long-term super thread or just use it as a starting point, but finances and budgeting have been on my mind a lot lately and I think it would be great to have a dedicated space for us to have ongoing conversations and check-ins about how things are going for us.




Ready, GO.

[krystee]

I would just like to say that we are basically eating our money. So many restaurants. I did a budget for August that cuts the amount in half and it's still way too high.

[katespade]

krystee - We have the exact same problem. The amount that we spent on restaurants in June was outrageous. We decided to nearly quit cold turkey. We've spent this month only ordering out one night per week (Friday night) and our restaurant budget dropped to under $100 for this month.

[MrsAggie]

We used to eat out a lot more before H started working evenings and now we have very few opportunities to eat out.

I think my problem is I like to shop. I like to buy clothes online since I work night. I LOVE finding things for the- be it decor or some kind of reno. I just dropped a fair amount on a beautiful full size mirror that I've been wanting to put at the bottom of our stairs for a year now. Our savings is still good, it's just that I'm not doing a very good job of saving more for baby. Oh and now I buy baby stuff. I get my shopping problem honestly from my mom- who has a much higher income lol.

FTR I never use credit cards so I don't have any debt. I just need to reel it in!

[katespade]

Our current goal is saving money to purchase a house. We are hoping to purchase in time to be out of our current rental when our lease is up at the beginning of April. We are still quite a ways from the amount we need for a down payment, so any extra amount that can be moved into savings will help us.
Our Basic Budget:

Rent: $1,000
Car Loan: $350
Water/Sewer: $80
Garbage: $17
Natural Gas: $50
Electric: $50
Cell Phones: $136
Cable/Internet: $70
Netflix/Hulu: $25
Groceries: $400
Dining Out: $100
Auto Ins: $150
Bike Ins: $40
Gas: $300
Total Expenses: $2,768
Savings: $1,000 ($250 per paycheck, four paychecks per month)

Income After Taxes/Benefit Costs: ~$4,000
Current Budget Wiggle Room: ~$232

We implemented our new budget on 7/1. I sat down tonight to see how we've done so far this month, and our problem area is still groceries. We've been successfully meal planning lunches and dinners all month, but we did have to stock up on a lot of essentials at the beginning of the month since we've rarely bothered to cook real food at home on a regular basis in the past. We're currently $50 over budget with a week and a half left in the month. On the other hand, I think we over-estimated our gas costs. Even with H's trip out of state earlier this month (which caused two extra fill-ups), we're under budget by $70.

H and I are both covered on his company medical and dental insurance, which is $100 per month, and he also has his gym membership come out of his paycheck, which I believe is around $35 per month. My health insurance costs are $76 per month (which includes medical for me, as well as dental for both of us) and I put $50 per month into an HSA account. Having proper health insurance coverage is pretty important for us because of my health issues.

We don't use credit cards, so our truck loan is the only debt we currently have.

SO, advice? Areas to improve on? Areas that seem higher than they should be? Suggestions of ways to lower utilities costs? Anything that will get more money in our savings account each month?

ETA: I should add that the groceries category includes household products, since we purchase them on the same trips to the same stores.

[estrellita]

I'd be interested in seeing anyone's meal plans if they are willing to share, including lunches. I assume most people eat similar things as I do for breakfast (bagel, cereal, stuff like that). I'm mostly interested in quick, easy meals with few ingredients that don't go bad quickly, and easy lunch ideas that can be put together the night before or quickly in the morning.

[katespade]

estrellita - We have a really basic meal plan, with a lot of room for improvising based on our moods.
Mon - Noodles.
Tue - Quesadillas/Burritos.
Wed - Chicken & Rice.
Thu - Burgers.
Fri - Dinner out.

Saturday and Sunday are when we go through whatever food is left in our house by the end of the week. On Sunday morning we sit down and decide what H wants to do for lunches, then we go grocery shopping. Usually, he picks something to crock pot on Sunday that will last all week. The past few weeks, though, it's been so hot that he has been alternating between deli meat sandwiches and homemade burritos instead. I snack throughout the day, then come home and have a small lunch. A PB&J, a frozen dinner ($1.73 Lean Cuisine), or whatever is in the fridge that isn't saved for H's lunches.

We're still working on the details, but we definitely saw an improvement in our grocery costs this month.

[katespade]

jjwritergirl - Yeah, there isn't much to choose from for cell phones around here. T-Mobile is cheaper, but the coverage is awful so it doesn't really seem worth it to lower our cost and end up unable to use our phones. We do get a 22% discount on our bill, which is a big help. Our contact is up in February, so since T-Mobile isn't a real option we are pretty much stuck waiting until then to make any changes.

Any tips on sticking to $400 a month for groceries? We're going to end up around $500 this month, but since it's our first month really tracking it's hard to tell why we went over.

Bike insurance is for H's motorcycle.

[MrsMB]

If this helps anyone, we use this for meal planning: www.emeals.com . You can customize it based on a particular grocery store OR type of diet. The ones based on grocery stores are usually the ones that save you the most money. They work by finding what is on sale and basing several recipes that week around the sale items.

[grover]

We usually save our dinner leftovers for the next night's dinner so we don't have to cook every night. Lunches are usually sandwiches, salads, or soup for me. H takes chili (I make enough for the week and freeze) and tortilla chips.

We started buying some stuff at Aldi (my pop, turkey chili ingredients, spices, etc).

[cactuscookie]

We generally spend a lot on groceries, but I think we do well for our snacks and lunches at work. Throughout the day, we mostly eat yogurt, fruit, oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, almonds, vegetables with hummus, and cottage cheese. Other than making a batch of hard-boiled eggs (or sometimes a frittata) on Sunday afternoons, it takes no time to prepare, and it's healthy and relatively cheap. Plus, because I spend a few minutes packing it in the morning, it's ready to go at my desk and I'm not tempting to go out to lunch instead.

[grover]

It's also probably stupid of us to do, but we rounded up payments both on H's car and on some of our student loans. In the case of the car, I didn't want to take the full 6 years H signed up for to pay it off, plus I'd like a car sooner rather than later. I think we pay an extra $40 maybe a month (automated). The student loans had been higher payments ($330 for one set of mine) but then interest changed and the payment fell to like $270. I left the payments at $330. Everyone pushes snowballing, and we'd probably pay one of the two off faster that way, but I kinda like seeing both decrease more every month than they would if we were doing minimums.

[estrellita]

Jul 24, 2014 12:17:26 GMT -5 grover said:

It's also probably stupid of us to do, but we rounded up payments both on H's car and on some of our student loans. In the case of the car, I didn't want to take the full 6 years H signed up for to pay it off, plus I'd like a car sooner rather than later. I think we pay an extra $40 maybe a month (automated). The student loans had been higher payments ($330 for one set of mine) but then interest changed and the payment fell to like $270. I left the payments at $330. Everyone pushes snowballing, and we'd probably pay one of the two off faster that way, but I kinda like seeing both decrease more every month than they would if we were doing minimums.

I'm thinking of doing this, even just bumping up the payments a little. Like our new car payment is $235, maybe we could bump it up to $250 and it would still be doable. Not much, but in a year that would pay an extra $180, which is better than nothing! But then I wonder if we should just keep our payments as is and push extra money into savings. We've been really good about putting every check we get into our savings (I mentioned that we put MIL's phone payments into savings instead of actually toward the bill) but it's not enough unless someone starts writing us big checks I can't decide which is more important. Paying off the debt will take a while but will be awesome when we are ahead of the game and have NO debt at all (until we buy a house of course!). But then again, saving up for things we want like a house or a vacation would be nice too. Our vacations are usually just weekend camping trips. I really want to bring H out to the east coast or travel somewhere we've never been. Decisions, decisions.. (it's not fun being an impatient person that can't make decisions!)

[travelbug]

So my H and I are not salary workers, so our paychecks vary depending on how much we work. What do people suggest being a good way to make a budget when things change from paycheck to paycheck! Any advice would be awesome!

Also is there a specific format people like to use. I need to officially make a written out formal budget! (ie: envelope system)

[MrsAggie]

Jul 28, 2014 0:02:29 GMT -5 travelbug said:

So my H and I are not salary workers, so our paychecks vary depending on how much we work. What do people suggest being a good way to make a budget when things change from paycheck to paycheck! Any advice would be awesome!

Also is there a specific format people like to use. I need to officially make a written out formal budget! (ie: envelope system)

I mean, I don't know how to be official. If you're trying to save money for something like buying a house, having a baby, etc. then I would budget to stay in the low end of your paychecks. That way when you make more, the extra can all go into savings. As far as a formatted budget, I'd hit up MM because I think they get off on creating those lol.

[bk1]

Jul 24, 2014 12:17:26 GMT -5 grover said:

It's also probably stupid of us to do, but we rounded up payments both on H's car and on some of our student loans. In the case of the car, I didn't want to take the full 6 years H signed up for to pay it off, plus I'd like a car sooner rather than later. I think we pay an extra $40 maybe a month (automated). The student loans had been higher payments ($330 for one set of mine) but then interest changed and the payment fell to like $270. I left the payments at $330. Everyone pushes snowballing, and we'd probably pay one of the two off faster that way, but I kinda like seeing both decrease more every month than they would if we were doing minimums.

I've done it this way and snowballing. I understand the temptation of this for sure, but I found once I started snowballing it seemed to really go faster. 

[HoneySpider]

Jul 28, 2014 6:09:07 GMT -5 bk1 said:

Jul 24, 2014 12:17:26 GMT -5 grover said:

It's also probably stupid of us to do, but we rounded up payments both on H's car and on some of our student loans. In the case of the car, I didn't want to take the full 6 years H signed up for to pay it off, plus I'd like a car sooner rather than later. I think we pay an extra $40 maybe a month (automated). The student loans had been higher payments ($330 for one set of mine) but then interest changed and the payment fell to like $270. I left the payments at $330. Everyone pushes snowballing, and we'd probably pay one of the two off faster that way, but I kinda like seeing both decrease more every month than they would if we were doing minimums.

I've done it this way and snowballing. I understand the temptation of this for sure, but I found once I started snowballing it seemed to really go faster. 

When we paid off our credit cards we snowballed and I liked it a lot - it always feels so good to get any debt off our plate!

[HoneySpider]

Jul 28, 2014 0:02:29 GMT -5 travelbug said:

So my H and I are not salary workers, so our paychecks vary depending on how much we work. What do people suggest being a good way to make a budget when things change from paycheck to paycheck! Any advice would be awesome!

Also is there a specific format people like to use. I need to officially make a written out formal budget! (ie: envelope system)

My budget is in an excel spreadsheet - not very high tech, but it's what works for me. Each month we allocate x amount in certain categories and then we keep our spending in check. I would budget for the low end of your paychecks and I would consider adding a "slush fund" line item so you can throw a little extra in there in case you have a lean month paycheck-wise or a tough month spending-wise. We do this now because my PT job varies a lot so I always contribute x amount per month to our static budget and then the rest is excess. 

[travelbug]

Jul 28, 2014 7:12:27 GMT -5 HoneySpider said:

Jul 28, 2014 0:02:29 GMT -5 travelbug said:

So my H and I are not salary workers, so our paychecks vary depending on how much we work. What do people suggest being a good way to make a budget when things change from paycheck to paycheck! Any advice would be awesome!

Also is there a specific format people like to use. I need to officially make a written out formal budget! (ie: envelope system)

My budget is in an excel spreadsheet - not very high tech, but it's what works for me. Each month we allocate x amount in certain categories and then we keep our spending in check. I would budget for the low end of your paychecks and I would consider adding a "slush fund" line item so you can throw a little extra in there in case you have a lean month paycheck-wise or a tough month spending-wise. We do this now because my PT job varies a lot so I always contribute x amount per month to our static budget and then the rest is excess. 

That's a great idea. A Slush-Fund. I love that! 

[katespade]

End of the month check in!
How did everyone do on their budgets for July? Any changes you're planning on making for August?

[katespade]

jjwritergirl - Bummer! Pretty understandable, though, with a new baby. The online sales have been the hardest thing for me to avoid. I'm terrible about giving into the amazing prices and buying things I absolutely don't need.

[travelbug]

What are some people's budget categories? I have made my rough outline on excel for my budget. Still tweaking, but before I finalize it I am curious as to what categories other's have!

[HoneySpider]

Aug 12, 2014 14:19:25 GMT -5 travelbug said:

What are some people's budget categories? I have made my rough outline on excel for my budget. Still tweaking, but before I finalize it I am curious as to what categories other's have!

Mine are very broad right now. I used to have it broken down into much smaller categories when we were paying off debt, but this is what works for us now.

Loans & monthly: includes rent, my SL, H's SL, car insurance, Roth IRAs

Living: includes pretty much everything...cable & internet, H's cell phone, electric, gas for the cars, groceries/toiletries, pet supplies & vet, eating out, joint fun money, clothes, house, medical, auto maintenance/registration/etc, travel, grooming, newspaper delivery

Giving: includes gifts & charitable donations

My fun money

H's fun money

Savings

If it would help I can pull out my old budget and see what categories I used. Probably a lot of what I have now just divided out instead of lumped together.

[ewall]

Aug 12, 2014 14:19:25 GMT -5 travelbug said:

What are some people's budget categories? I have made my rough outline on excel for my budget. Still tweaking, but before I finalize it I am curious as to what categories other's have!

We have quite a few. These are the current ones in our You Need A Budget sheet.

Mortgage
Student Loans: his and hers paid off!!!

Tithing
Other Charity

Groceries
Restaurants

Electric
Water
Natural Gas
City Fees/Garbage
Phone/Internet
Maintenance/Repairs
Furnishings
Landscape

Life Insurance
Medical
Personal Care Items
Miscellaneous (cleaning supplies, stamps, dry cleaning, random crap)
Taxes (if we owe income tax that year, we spend Jan thru Apr budgeting for the amount due)
Baby (this one is new! currently for baby gear, then daycare/diapers later on)

Running (our hobby so this is race fees and gear/shoes)
Cash/ATM
Fun Money - his and hers...our clothing budgets come out of this
Entertainment (Netflix subscription, movies out, random fun activities)
Satellite TV

Car Payment (paid off!!)
Car Insurance
Maintenance
Gas

Emergency Fund
Retirement
Remodeling Fund
Car Replacement Fund

[estrellita]

Aug 12, 2014 14:19:25 GMT -5 travelbug said:

What are some people's budget categories? I have made my rough outline on excel for my budget. Still tweaking, but before I finalize it I am curious as to what categories other's have!

Our major ones would be: 
Rent
Electric
Cable/Internet
Cell Phone
Student loans
Car payment
Car insurance
Netflix
Gas
Groceries
Fast food/restaurants
Cat supplies (food, litter)
Random household supplies (TP, cleaning products, etc)
Clothes (this is rarely used anymore though. I blew through it easily when I worked at Express  )

[travelbug]

HoneySpider ewall estrellita Thanks ladies! Some of the categories I had not thought of!