New year, new budget!

[kittenponypony]

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I haven’t been keeping the closest tabs on my spending in the past year. I use Mint but haven’t been tracking categories really, I just use it for the overall numbers. So, inspired by the new year and paying off my student loans, I broke out a spreadsheet today and hand analyzed my spending from December. Apparently I spent $400 as a single person on food and alcohol in a month 😬 My goal is to hand input the numbers daily/every other day, so I have a clear sense of how I’m doing towards my goals. I listened to some budgeting podcasts yesterday and a rule of thumb seems to be 50% towards essentials like housing, 30% discretionary, and 20% pay down debt/save.

Does anyone else have any new year budget goals?

[ohgillian]

Jan 3, 2021 14:38:41 GMT -5 kittenponypony said:

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I haven’t been keeping the closest tabs on my spending in the past year. I use Mint but haven’t been tracking categories really, I just use it for the overall numbers. So, inspired by the new year and paying off my student loans, I broke out a spreadsheet today and hand analyzed my spending from December. Apparently I spent $400 as a single person on food and alcohol in a month 😬 My goal is to hand input the numbers daily/every other day, so I have a clear sense of how I’m doing towards my goals. I listened to some budgeting podcasts yesterday and a rule of thumb seems to be 50% towards essentials like housing, 30% discretionary, and 20% pay down debt/save.

Does anyone else have any new year budget goals?

This seems extremely labor intensive, but if you have the discipline, more power to you. (Probably no one uses that phrase anymore lol). Is there no way to automate this? I mean, full disclosure, I use a spreadsheet and do hand enter certain items, so I get it, but I use mint to aggregate most of the financial transactions and then I just paste them in a few times a year.

This isn't budget related, but money-wise, I hope to learn a bit more this year about places to park cash for the short and medium term. I don't know much about things like ultra short term bond funds, and haven't done well keeping track of what my short term set-asides are earning. (e.g., $7500 that I plan to use on furniture in a few months, etc.) In the current environment, I really doubt I'm missing out on much of anything returns wise, but it would be good to learn these things so that if we return to a higher-interest world at some point, I'll be able to make this type of money work a little harder for me. 

[kittenponypony]

Jan 3, 2021 15:40:05 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

Jan 3, 2021 14:38:41 GMT -5 kittenponypony said:

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I haven’t been keeping the closest tabs on my spending in the past year. I use Mint but haven’t been tracking categories really, I just use it for the overall numbers. So, inspired by the new year and paying off my student loans, I broke out a spreadsheet today and hand analyzed my spending from December. Apparently I spent $400 as a single person on food and alcohol in a month 😬 My goal is to hand input the numbers daily/every other day, so I have a clear sense of how I’m doing towards my goals. I listened to some budgeting podcasts yesterday and a rule of thumb seems to be 50% towards essentials like housing, 30% discretionary, and 20% pay down debt/save.

Does anyone else have any new year budget goals?

This seems extremely labor intensive, but if you have the discipline, more power to you. (Probably no one uses that phrase anymore lol). Is there no way to automate this? I mean, full disclosure, I use a spreadsheet and do hand enter certain items, so I get it, but I use mint to aggregate most of the financial transactions and then I just paste them in a few times a year.

This isn't budget related, but money-wise, I hope to learn a bit more this year about places to park cash for the short and medium term. I don't know much about things like ultra short term bond funds, and haven't done well keeping track of what my short term set-asides are earning. (e.g., $7500 that I plan to use on furniture in a few months, etc.) In the current environment, I really doubt I'm missing out on much of anything returns wise, but it would be good to learn these things so that if we return to a higher-interest world at some point, I'll be able to make this type of money work a little harder for me. 

When I did the month of December, it only took me about 15 minutes. So I assume if I update it every day or every other day it will just take a minute or two. Sometimes I feel like I have more control/a better handle on things writing them down on paper, I’m not totally sure why. In the past I’ve had difficulty creating new categories in Mint and having it calculate my input/output correctly, plus it’s more of a hassle splitting a single item into multiple categories (why do I spend so much money at Walgreens and Target??) But if I find it’s too much of a hassle I will reassess

[simpsongal]

Congrats again! I have hand input numbers into a spreadsheet for years - I have a top section for fixed expenses and utilities, and I list my cc spending. I set yearly goals on the spreadsheet too.

My goal this yr is to pay off the heloc we took out in 2020. We had so much money going to the addition, I can’t wait to get lower cc bills and start chunking down the debt. I got a raise last yr but I don’t have a sense of how much extra we have for savings and whatnot bc of the big project.

We’ll skip dd’s 529 contribution bc she’s a yr ahead of ds - we’ll put that $4k to debt repayments. I’m also hoping we have extra savings this summer from keeping dd and ds home from camp.

I generally try to control my extra spending by shopping my house (using up makeup and hair stuff). Eating my pantry too. And for clothes, dh largely gets them as gifts from family, I don’t spend much on clothes, and I hit the thrift stores for the kids.

I get the itch for home projects so I’ll probably spend some money on landscaping this spring but I’ll try to save on other diy home projects by picking inexpensive upgrades/projects.
ETA -Jan-April are usually big savings months for us. I’m just praying we don’t have a big escrow shortage from our refi last year. Or anything else that’s unexpected.

[chpmnk1015]

nice.. way to start tracking and looking at it. I hand key too- But in quicken.. only takes a couple minutes a day and love it.

Have many goals this year..
there is some question on my job in the next few weeks and while we are good savers, i really want to tighten a few things we have been spending a lot on- mainly food. started meal planning again so hoping that will help.

Want to have my husbands roth ira saved for by end of February.. we will see.. been saving since early december for that. Also have a savings goal for the kids i am trying to hit by july.

[trissie18]

My goals for 2021 are to pay off my student loans (should be done in March!), cash flow $14000 in home improvements (gutters, front porches, a second hot water heater for the master bedroom end of the house, and a whole house back-up generator), and pay off more than 50% of a personal loan balance. We are also starting to work with a FA that is going to help us meet our long-term financial goals (purchase the property next door to us) and increase our retirement savings.