2010 Family Budget is DONE!!!!
- Image by doommeer via Flickr
Yippeee!!!!
I’ve been dreading it because spending has gotten so out of hand lately.
Which makes a new budget kind of “where do I start????”
And I would rather stick my head in the sand than try and face where all our money is going at the moment so that puts tracking right at the bottom of my “list of things to do” (or at the top of “things I’d rather poke my eye out than do”).
Anyway, yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and play around with some figures and see what happened.
A couple of the problems I was facing were:
1. Medical expenses have risen and I have NO IDEA how much we might need in 2010 (depends on how Farmboy’s back goes and how many physio appointments he needs).
2. Tracking has been too specific and once I get behind, it’s too much of a mess to sort out.
SO….
I went through and took out all the regular payments that come out of our account. I was recording all of those each time they came out which was probably unnecessary given they’re a regular amount.
Then I worked out if I actually took out of the account any amounts that need to accumulate (like Christmas money) I wouldn’t need to track so carefully because you can’t spend what isn’t there. I now have a monthly amount to transfer to our savings account.
I want to use cash for groceries, take away and pocket money. I prefer weekly which is a pain as everything else is monthly but by using cash, I can get away with doing it this way (just converted my weekly amount to a yearly amount so I know how much I have left).
So I’m now down to all the bits and pieces like clothing, medical, school expenses etc etc etc.
I divided those into 2 categories:
1. Essential - medical, clothing, school expenses, basic household maintenance etc.
2. Non Essential - gifts, birthday parties, leisure, sport, kids activities etc.
Those things are the only things I’m going to actually “track” this year. And by having them in 2 broad categories, I don’t have to “guess” how much each specific category is going to cost us. I’m hoping to record enough information that if I need to know, I can go through and calculate how much specific categories ended up costing us through the year. But, even if I don’t, tracking to this much detail is better than nothing!
It feels like a real load off to have gotten at least this far with it.
In fact, I’m quite excited and ready to see if this will actually “work” (it starts 1st Feb so have a few days to wait).
I will admit that most of the money I used to allocate to “savings” is now being eaten up by increasing costs. Our income is the same as it was 7 years ago but the cost of living has increased and my children have grown (so they eat more now LOL). BUT, that was going toward our “big trip” and we’ve had that now so it’s not all bad.
One of these days I hope to actually work on accumulating some “savings”.
But for now, I’m happy that we at least have some kind of plan for 2010. 
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7 comments:
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Well done for tackling your budget Jody. It’s not a fun job (esp. if you’ve been overspending) but now you can move forward and leave the past in the past. I use a mainly cash budget but find once I start spending it just gets easier and easier to keep spending.
Libby
mmmmm you are so organised.. i had planned to have mine done way before now but just havent had the brain to churn it over..
Hey, you didnt reveal to us how much your average spend was last year??? did you enter the vote from your last post. it was interesting.. wonder if i can get mine lower cos i need to!
We often wonder if by keeping a tally of all our spending it actually helps or not.. although i do get a scare when i ask microsoft $ to do a report on spending.. and then i have to close my eyes and tell myself that the program is surely lying!! LOL!
Libby - yes, I think that’s what has happened to us. Gotta turn that ship around. Once we’re facing in the right direction, things should get easier.
Lynette - Problem is, I don’t actually know what our average spend on groceries has been. I’m guessing $150 but it’s really only a guess. I’m budgetting $150 a week for 2010 so here’s hoping it’s an “accurate” guess.
We always spend less when we track our spending. But sometimes I prefer the “head in the sand” approach. 
I’m glad you posted about this. It was a good reminder to me to sort my budget out - and I have now done that!
I always feel a lot better once I have updated my budget - more in control.
Good for you!
We’ve been on a bit of a spending spree since Xmas - I should plan for it because it happens every year!
Congrats on finishing the budget!
We have been using our current budget for about 18 months now and I am so much happier knowing what our financial postion is. No more robbing Peter to pay Paul - it was how we lived for quite a while. I spend about 20 minutes each Friday morning doing our finances (we are paid weekly) I bpay, transfer and track what I need to and then it’s all done and I know exactly where we are. And the stress is gone.
Regards
Suzanne
Well done on getting your budget done so early int he year. I still haven’t got mine finished yet. *hangs head in shame*