![]() ![]() When I first started budget planning I was terrible at it. Budget planning gets better the more you do it Whatever is leftover at the end, goes into my savings. I’ll then check my bank account balance to see if it actually matches up (it often doesn’t, usually because of a pay after delivery on Paypal that I’ve forgotten about). From there I’ll work out how I ended up for the month – either plus or minus. I’ll then add up the total income I ended up on for the month. I’ll add up all the outgoings and enter them in the monthly view. At the next pay day, I sit down and review my spending for the previous month. Therefore when I say end of the month, I mean pay day. I don’t do my budget by calendar month as I get paid on the 28th. This will be particularly useful if I’m halfway through the month and close to hitting a budget! What I may do at the end of each week is also write how much is left of each budget as a very clear written reminder. Before, I was just ad-hoc counting it up throughout the month, to check in on where I was at with my budget. It’ll make keeping myself on track budget-wise much easier. Each Sunday evening I’ll total up the spending in each of the categories and write it in. This is a new idea given to me on a Facebook group. Speaking of counting up the spending, on the left hand size you’ll see weeks one to four written out. To make it even easier to count up spending in each category, I’ll also colour code as I go. For next month I haven’t given petrol it’s own column as it takes up a lot of space for something I’ll probably only do once in the month. I have a chart where I write the date, what I’ve purchased, the amount and a column to tick or mark which category it falls into. I have a very simple set up, using the notes pages in the back. This means I have no excuse not to write what I spend as I’m actually out doing it. Spending trackerĪs my Weeks is my everyday carry I find using this to track my spending the most foolproof way of doing it. Other than writing in my Etsy payments, this remains untouched until the end of the month. Underneath all that is where I write my self imposed budgets for my four categories. If I know I’m going to be claiming expenses through work, or I have other income due then I leave space to write that in too. This means that in my monthly view, I only have to write out the total planned outgoings for the month, which takes up much less room.Īlongside that, I have my salary for the month and space to write in my Etsy payments each. I have a list of all the outgoings (gym, rent, car payments etc). What I do have separate, is a page in the back of my Weeks for my static outgoings. Instead of having it in a separate section somewhere, like I did in my Filofax, I now put it in the monthly view in my Cousin. ![]() To aid with the above, I’ve changed where I write my budget each month. If I know bills are due this month, then I need to reduce everything by a little bit to pay for them. If I have more trips or birthdays, I may need to designate more money for food or other. At this point I also consult my planner for the month. ![]() Whatever is planned to be left over, is intended for my savings. I set a budget based on what I have left after bills for each of the four categories. I have four categories – food, petrol, Etsy (shop related expenses) and other (everything else). ![]() Whatever is left is your budget for the month, for you to portion out however you want. I don’t include bills such as gas and electric in this as they change from quarter to quarter. This is your direct debits and amounts that don’t change – rent, phone, internet etc. What are your static outgoings each month?.Anything I earn from Etsy over the month, I add onto at the end of the month (more on that later) but consider it a bonus. As I have a mix of the two, I use my salary as the starting point. Those who are self employed you’ll have to do some maths and work out some conservative averages. Those who have a more static income, this will be much easier. While the planners I use and how I write everything out might change, this process always stays the same. Budget planning – the basicsīefore I get into exactly how I use both my Hobonichi Weeks and Cousin to budget plan, it’s a good idea to take you through how I set up my budget each month. The more I’ve used my Hobonichi, the more things I’ve moved over from my Filofax to my Hobonichi. That was until, I started using a Hobonichi. Since then, I haven’t changed my system too much. If you’ve been reading my blog a while, you’ll know I’ve posted before about my budget planning set up in my Filofax. I also gave an update a year later. While I wouldn’t say I’m super thrifty because of it, I’m definitely more mindful of my spending and have built up a decent amount of savings. I’ve been tracking my spending and budget planning for years now. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |