Comments on: Budget Categories – Less is more

By: #032 — Links O’ The (Mid-)Week | MyMoneyMinute.com

#032 — Links O’ The (Mid-)Week | MyMoneyMinute.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:08:13 +0000

[...] Budget Categories: Less is More [...]

By: Simplify Your Personal Finance Life « Being Completely Frugal

Simplify Your Personal Finance Life « Being Completely Frugal — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:56:10 +0000

[...] example, we used to track budget categories like “paper products,” and “cleaning supplies.” It might be good to know [...]

By: threadbndr

threadbndr — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:31:13 +0000

I have about 25 categories. Some of them are subdivisions (Utilities has gas, electric, water/trash – for example).

I used to have more, but when your kids are grown, EVERYTHING gets simpler, really.

By: Simplify Your Personal Finance Life | Frugal Dad

Simplify Your Personal Finance Life | Frugal Dad — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:03:08 +0000

[...] example, we used to track budget categories like “paper products,” and “cleaning supplies.” It might be good to know [...]

By: Weekly Round Up: Mint Edition

Weekly Round Up: Mint Edition — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:02:18 +0000

[...] Budget Categories – Less is more [...]

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:52:13 +0000

I have a about 20 categories….these come under larger budget groups such as medical, food, insurance, housing, automobile, etc. It works for me.

By: Diane

Diane — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:16 +0000

I learned ‘fund accounting’ when I was 19; not only do they use it in business and industry, but it’s great for your personal financial program.

I have it this way:

I use an plastic envelope system; it has about 10 pockets. They are labled, and inserted are the bills that pertain to that topic.

Housing: House payment, home-owner association fees, taxes, insurance, electric. (Our water and trash are paid for through the home-owner association).

Car: We’ve paid cash for our 2 cars for over 40 years, so I title this ’savings for new car’ – I put in $300/month so I can accumulate what it takes for trading in one car; using the accumulated funds as the ‘balance due’. In that pocket is gasoline, repair/maintenance, and insurance.

Cable: This includes the I-net/television, and phone (land-line).

Mobile Phone: This includes 2 phones.

Food and personal allowances: We take personal allowances so we have some spending money that’s not accountable for; add the groceries and our lottery tickets we buy.

USAA Mastercard: Any charges on this are strictly for home items.

NFCU Visa: Any charges on this are strictly for vacations and clothing.

B of A Visa: Any charges on this are for medical expenses/dental costs, and gifts.

Savings: $1,000/month minimum – $700 goes into CD’s; $300 into a liquid savings account.

All credit cards are paid off at the end of each month if each card has $500 or less on the balance. If a major expense is more than $500, then we pay it off in 90 days to minimize interest costs.

As you can see the categories are about 10 in number; the same number as the ‘pockets’ in the plastic envelope.

I’ve been doing this for so many years, I can’t think of an easier way – it’s worked beautifully for us.

By: SJ

SJ — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:33:36 +0000

I keep mine simple… food, groceries, gas, parking, laundry, and social.
It helps that I’m in grad school and only really have food/grocery expenses.

I use food mostly for when I go out to eat and groceries for groceries. I think I should collapse parking/gas (that only occurred b/c I had a conference…) And maybe make laundry a misc. category.

I figure soon I’ll collapse social and food together… but I still sometimes eat out alone. The main purpose of social is a guilt free category =)

By: Studenomics

Studenomics — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:15:20 +0000

I try to keep my budget fairly simple to be honest. The reason for this is that it forces me to watch every aspect of a certain category. For example; I place eating out & going for drinks with friends at entertainment. I feel that if I had 2 seperate categories I wouldn’t feel as bad when I spend money on these items. I hope that makes sense.

By: d

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:05:23 +0000

Here here here! Yes….to much detail can boggle the mind and detract people from sticking to their budget.

We have actually been budgeting for over a year now and as the year passed we widdled it changed it and tweeked it. We now do have a budget category…but we also have a “line” as we call it.. Our LINE is all of our necessary spending categories added up. For us it is 650–it is actually 600 but we put a buffer in a 50 and if it is left over between paydays it gets snowflaked.

DH–gets 200–his food to eat out..sometimes food for treats like ice cream for the kids….some tool/gizmo for a house project..what ever he wants.
I-get 300–to buy food/clothes/whatever I need or want
Kids-50 total
100-gas or other auto needs
Buffer–$50, plus gas left over
This line is now 650
We pay ourselves the 650..we then pay all the bills, anything left over after set expenses gets tossed on our smallest debt–currently a car.

Having our line has helped us simplify…occaisionally I don’t withdraw cash…..inevitably I go over my budget when I do that..but the cool thing is my hubby and I are comfortable with the ocassional overages as long as we dont go past our line of 650.

Simplifiying truly helps!