Budgets

[prettyinpink]

What system do you use to keep track of your budget? What types of categories do you have? How much is in your E-Fund( you don't have to be exact)? TIA

[crimewatcher]

We use Excel. They have a bunch of free templates that you can download and customize.

Since our only debt is H's Cadet Loan we have that as a category along with our automatic retirement deposits.

We have rent, Sprint, Utilities, Insurance, Netflix, Pet, Fuel, Hair, Paintball for H, eating out, groceries movies.


As for our Savings we are sitting really good at could live for 9 months with no change in our lifestyle but a year if we cut back on fun stuff.

[meltoine]

We use excel too.

For categories we have:
House (rent, water, electricity, personal property insurance),
Cars (payment, insurance, gas, repairs),
Groceries (food, cleaning supplies, personal care items (including hair cuts), dog food and meds),
Entertainment (Netflix, Hulu Plus, cell phones, date night and associated child care, fun money, gifts),
Student Loans
Savings (General, my Roth IRA, Investment Acct, DS's college fund)

We don't have an E-fund, per se. We have our mutual fund account, which has about 30K in it. This will eventually grow into our house-downpayment-fund. We also have about 10K in a "car replacement" savings account where we dump our tax refund every year. Seeing as we are both driving fairly new cars, I don't expect to need this for several years. We also keep a general savings account for larger purchases. I just used some of it to pay for H's iPad for his graduation gift. We also used some of it to pay for our dog's surgery this week. We've also been known to use it for bigger car repairs that we can't fit into the budget for that month, like when my heater coil needed to be replaced for $700.

In an emergency, we'd tap the general savings first, then the new car fund. If we really cut back, that 10K could last us 4 months or so. If we needed help beyond that, we'd pull from our mutual fund account.

[prettyinpink]

Mel how did you go about setting up a mutual fund?

[meltoine]

We went through Vanguard. We looked at all of their available mutual funds and picked the one that best suited our needs. It's growing really well. It's been open 11 months and it's gained 25%.

I use "we" loosely. H has two advanced degrees in finance. He did it and I said, "Yup. That sounds great."

[prettyinpink]

Jul 1, 2012 20:43:30 GMT -5 meltoine said:

We went through Vanguard. We looked at all of their available mutual funds and picked the one that best suited our needs. It's growing really well. It's been open 11 months and it's gained 25%.

I use "we" loosely. H has two advanced degrees in finance. He did it and I said, "Yup. That sounds great."

Thank you! I guess I have so research to do!

[sookie]

I use an Excel spreadsheet that Stan was sweet enough to share with me!

Net Income
Mr. Sookie
Sookie
Other


Debt Expenses
Truck (APR= )
Car (APR= )
Student Loans
USAA MC (APR= )

Housing & Utilities
Mortgage
Cable/Internet
AT&T
Water Office
Electricity
Alarm

Auto
Insurance
Gas (Mr. Sookie)
Gas (Sookie)
Maintenance
Tags

Boat
Insurance
Gas
Maintenance
Tags

Living
Groceries
Cleaning Supplies
Dog Food
Veterinary Care
Entertainment
Gifts
Gym Membership
Personal Care (Mr. Sookie)
Personal Care (Sookie)
Fun Money (Mr. Sookie)
Fun Money (Sookie)

Scentsy
Stock
Supplies

Savings
Baby Fund
General Savings
Travel
Retirement

[prettyinpink]

Thanks S that will help tons! I set up a Mint.com account so hopefully that helps too. E just decided today that I am too much of a tight wad with money so we are wanting to see where things are going and how we can cut back and save more, while still "living".