A new approach

[violet]

to budgeting.

Some tools and explanations, and you can buy the book on Amazon.

winningwithmoney.com/

[Linda]

Looks very interesting, Elisa. I just took a quick peek now, but have bookmarked it to come back to (once I get caught up on the other posts from here)

Linda

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Well I think that this could actually work for me.

I'm great at sorting out a general budget, with money for bills, food, insurances, gifts, etc., all segregated so that it's there when it's needed.

However, what's left isn't enough to do everything else and that's where I've always fallen down. I'll arrange to meet someone for lunch, then dd will ask for a takeaway coffee, there will be the odd bit of dry cleaning, I'll need to buy stamps and printer ink and then I'll have nothing left.

There are a couple of shortfalls in the web form; for one thing, he hasn't included a category for vehicle maintenance.

I adjusted my figures to cover what I consider to be fixed costs and was left with a small daily figure.

I've gone back to paper, and am using a diary now. In the diary, I record the total amount spent on non-food and non-provisioned-for things, then record the balance left after subtracting the spent amount from the daily amount.

If I spend nothing, or less than the daily amount, that is rolled over to the next day so there's a bigger pool available than just the daily amount.

What it's done for me is to give me a visual reminder of how much money is spent on non-provisioned-for items.

It's also added a competitive element to budgeting: can I spend less today than yesterday? Can I save ten days worth of the daily amount and buy something for one of the kids or myself?

It's kind of fun. ;D (yes, fun is different for each of us lol)

Elisa

[Linda]

Oohh...I like challenging myself like that too --- "can I spend less on such and such this week? " kind of thing.

Up until I got sick, I used to write down every single cent I spent. I had a paper with our different subheadings on it. Things like, groceries, spending, food, hydro, gas, car licence, car insurance, house insurance....and so on. Every time we spent money, I would record the amount under the applicable category. At the end of the month, I would total up each category and then total up all of our expenses.

Also recorded was the amount of income.

I'd subtract the expenses from the income and the goal was to have a black balance. ;D Every month, I'd try to do better than the previous one.

I still haven't gotten back to this site....hopefully there won't be any more hurricanes and power interruptions ;D