Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 8:49:56 GMT -5
It's not supposed to be this hard, right? DH and I have a hole in our budget. It's the categories of "cash" and "stuff" which basically have been black holes. So starting Jan. 1, we began tracking every penny spent.
DH is an Excel god, so he's using that. I'm an Excel peon so I want to learn what he's doing and how but that's a different issue.
For those who track every penny onto spreadsheets (or whatever) what categories do you use? I think we spent almost as much time discussing that as we did entering 4 days of receipts, well, except for the Target one. We've got food, kid clothes, kid needs (diapers, vitamins, etc.), several others and the one DH seems to hate the most - "infrequent purchases" for basically one time purchases - sheets for DD twin bed when we move her out of the crib in a couple of weeks and a new juicer for DH. How do you handle that type of thing?
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Kung Fu Panda
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Post by Kung Fu Panda on Jan 5, 2011 8:59:22 GMT -5
I use a rolling cash and household line item. If I budget 200 this month and dont use it all, then I get to roll the balance to next month. This "saves" up and then wahlah..I need to buy pillows! Sick kids and Sick Pets are the ones that kill me. Since when it happens its usually a healthy amount of money
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The J
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Post by The J on Jan 5, 2011 9:48:43 GMT -5
A lot of those "one off" purchases might be classifiable as "household" expenses -- there are generally some every month, and they're not always the same.
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happyscooter
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Post by happyscooter on Jan 5, 2011 9:50:14 GMT -5
We write everything down in a little notebook. That way, if we are on vacation or out of town for a few days and can't get to a computer, I still list it without missing anything.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jan 5, 2011 9:59:16 GMT -5
I'm surprised that food and diapers were in your miscellaneous category. I spend more on food than I do on my mortgage!
One way that makes it easy is to not shop at Walmart and buy everything from electronics to strawberries on one receipt. I shop for personal items (make-up, shampoo, etc.) at one place, and groceries at another. That way, when I see "Safeway" hit my credit card, I know the whole thing is food. When I see Walgreens on my credit card, I know it is all those grooming items. Target is still of a mish-mosh. I don't know which takes more time - going through a receipt and picking out which items are what category, or making trips to 2 stores.
I know cash is a method to keep on-track, but I found using debit or credit for everything was an easier way to figure out where my money was going. Half the work was done for me.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 10:08:21 GMT -5
I'm surprised that food and diapers were in your miscellaneous category. I spend more on food than I do on my mortgage! One way that makes it easy is to not shop at Walmart and buy everything from electronics to strawberries on one receipt. I shop for personal items (make-up, shampoo, etc.) at one place, and groceries at another. That way, when I see "Safeway" hit my credit card, I know the whole thing is food. When I see Walgreens on my credit card, I know it is all those grooming items. Target is still of a mish-mosh. I don't know which takes more time - going through a receipt and picking out which items are what category, or making trips to 2 stores. I know cash is a method to keep on-track, but I found using debit or credit for everything was an easier way to figure out where my money was going. Half the work was done for me. Well, the food was the asparagus DH picked up on the fly and the 2 gallons of milk I picked up for the kids on Sunday. This isn't the budget spreadsheet although I want this new tracking to feed into DH's budget spreadsheet eventually. DH was joking and told me my next Target run needs to have separate receipts for each category. Breaking the tax down was annoying him. lol.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 10:11:58 GMT -5
A lot of those "one off" purchases might be classifiable as "household" expenses -- there are generally some every month, and they're not always the same. See, I was thinking household purchases are more like TP, pads and paper towel. Trash bags. Cleaning supplies. Light bulbs. Whereas infrequent stuff is once every couple of years - like towels, sheets, a new juicer. I suppose it really just boils down to what DH and I decide we want to call want and then stick to it. Sticking to this might very well be even harder. I know we need to do this so I'll stick with it.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jan 5, 2011 10:18:01 GMT -5
You could have household consumables and household durables.
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quotequeen
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Post by quotequeen on Jan 5, 2011 10:20:35 GMT -5
What's a budget?
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 10:27:30 GMT -5
You could have household consumables and household durables. that's a good suggestion and it may work better for DH.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Jan 5, 2011 10:31:11 GMT -5
Do you folks, by any miracle, use double-entry accounting software to track expenses that are not paid for with notes and coins?
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 10:54:26 GMT -5
Do you folks, by any miracle, use double-entry accounting software to track expenses that are not paid for with notes and coins? I'm pretty sure we're not. DH has a spreadsheet that he created about 15 -18 months ago and he updates it every month with the bills and the expected expenses and he allocates $1K for the aforementioned "stuff" category. I'm not sure what amount he's allocating for food but I suspect it's similar. He used to send me the spreadsheet and I found it confusing and hard to read/follow/understand. His verbal explanations didn't help me much either. Then we found out I was pregnant and gradually I just stopped being involved in the budget at all. It got to the point where I'd tell him I was going shopping and what I expected to spend and he'd just tell me to ATM or charge it and I'd go "ok" and leave. I don't want that anymore. But I don't want to take over the budget either. I get the basics of budgeting/tracking my/our spending. I really do, but I think DH and I are not on the same page for HOW to account for everything and I'm not doing so hot at following/learning his method and don't have an alternate to offer.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Jan 5, 2011 11:59:46 GMT -5
Here are our categories: Student loans School (making sure we are saving to pay for DH going back to school) Bills (includes mortgage, electric, cell phone, etc) Car Credit Cards (not really needed any more because I pay off the credit cards monthly and the expenses get put in their actual category, but it was important when we were in debt.) Groceries (includes paper towels, toilet paper, dog food, etc) Medical Eating Out My Allowance DH Allowance Pets (vet bills, flea treatment, toys, etc) House (getting the furnace fixed, but also new sheets, towels, etc) Misc (was used more before we had the allowance catergory, mostly for clothes) MIL (because we have a DPOA for her, we need to pay careful attention to any money we spend on her or get from her, for legal purposes) Savings
We used to have the following categories as well (but they got rolled into allowance) Hair & Nails Books & Movies Computer & Games
I don't exactly do double entry, but I have the checkbook sheet, where I keep a running balance and everything gets color coded by what type of expense it is (this can mean two colors if it went on the credit card), and then gets entered again in my budget spreadsheet where I keep track of how much we're spending in each category.
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dividend
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Post by dividend on Jan 5, 2011 12:18:29 GMT -5
Do you folks, by any miracle, use double-entry accounting software to track expenses that are not paid for with notes and coins? I do. Purchases on a credit card get entered into both the running total for that particular CC, and deducted from the appropriate fund. Makes it easy to tell, at a glance, how much is left in any particular category, the current balance on each each card, and how much is "left" in checking (actual balance - credit card balance). I like it, because tracking it this way, the money is recorded as spent at the time of the credit card swipe.
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Post by hawkeyes2001 on Jan 5, 2011 12:25:27 GMT -5
The type of items you are mentioning I categorize as House Hold needs. I used to have a set monthly amount for each category: food, gas, house hold, pet etc. But what I found was certain categories fluctuated month to month and it was time consuming to track. What I ended up doing was totaling the budgeted amount for all these categories which came to $1200. We now just budget $1200 total for all the categories combined. We have never been over budget b/c often if we spend less in one category we spend more in another and things even out. And it is far less work for me.
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pushingit
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Post by pushingit on Jan 5, 2011 13:05:50 GMT -5
Well, the food was the asparagus DH picked up on the fly and the 2 gallons of milk I picked up for the kids on Sunday. This isn't the budget spreadsheet although I want this new tracking to feed into DH's budget spreadsheet eventually. DH was joking and told me my next Target run needs to have separate receipts for each category. Breaking the tax down was annoying him. lol. You're being too fastidious. I glance at my Target receipt for $101.57 and check out what's on there and go "Ok, about half this stuff was kids clothing, $25 was a gift, the rest is household crap." and that's really good enough. You won't have any better or lesser idea of what you're spending on if you track it down to the penny/tax, than if you do a close estimate.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jan 5, 2011 13:13:51 GMT -5
Besides - if you are going to be that exact about it - shouldn't you separate out sales tax for every receipt and put it into a "sales tax" account?
Ack! Really - just round it. The tax won't make or break your spending decisions.
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Kung Fu Panda
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Post by Kung Fu Panda on Jan 5, 2011 13:25:12 GMT -5
DH was joking and told me my next Target run needs to have separate receipts for each category. Breaking the tax down was annoying him. lol. -------------------------------- Holy cow..I thought I was anal about my budget... I slot everything at Target, Walmart, Home Depot as Household and Grocery Stores as Food. (yes there is some cross over but not a huge amount. I use Mint to allocate my budget across all accounts. It pulls CreditCard, My Checking and Our Joint Checking into the budget for actuals. We use the Joint acct for food, household and whatnot, and we have our own accounts for personal expenses and entertainment.
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jkapp
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Post by jkapp on Jan 5, 2011 13:30:07 GMT -5
I have the general ones: Food, property tax, electric, gas, water/sewer, phone, fuel, transfers to savings, etc Then I have some more unique ones: entertainment (DVDs, movie theatre, hookers, parties - that kind of thing) oil changes/auto exp dinners (eating out or take-in/delivered) clothes supplies (anything that I use regularly, such as detergent, garbage bags, etc) equipment/tools repairs maintenance vacation furniture/appliances (this also includes payments on financed items) Along with breaking out the cash expenditures this way, I also breakdown the credit card purchases in similar categories. I budget $100 in cash withdrawals each month for small things, like lunches for work or small purchases, but if I don't use it then I just have less expenses for the month )I don't roll it over each month). I try to use debit/credit cards as much as possible to track my purchases better. When I use cash i am much less apt at entring that expense on my budget
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 13:31:03 GMT -5
Estimates were what lead us to a $1K category called 'stuff' in the first place! lol. I think we need to do it this way, at least for now. Because honestly, we have a vague idea of where that money went. And how can we plug a hole we don't see?
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 13:35:23 GMT -5
DH was joking and told me my next Target run needs to have separate receipts for each category. Breaking the tax down was annoying him. lol. -------------------------------- Holy cow..I thought I was anal about my budget... you know, that's the thing. DH is being anal about breaking down the sales tax and the $140 for the Target trip but is perfectly fine with the "stuff" category being vague. And it's not like he's hiding anything in there. there's no other women or porn/video game additions or anything. Do you like the Mint? I looked at moneydance today.
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Kung Fu Panda
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Post by Kung Fu Panda on Jan 5, 2011 13:40:43 GMT -5
Do you like the Mint? I looked at moneydance today.
---------------------------------------------- I like Mint because it auto pulls all my accounts based on my internet logins. They added the multiple checking acct feature and that sold it for me. Now I can set up a budget and pull in all my accounts to actualize against it. I setup some goals - Retirement, House, Debt..and it uses my actuals against those goals too.
It also pulls in all my savings and investment accts, even my car and shows me my NW.
It will not forecast though. I have to use my excel check register to forecast, even though I keep a cushion, I need to make sure for myself that I dont accidentaly spend more on "other" than I have available for the coming weeks.
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Post by kristi28 on Jan 5, 2011 13:43:03 GMT -5
This might sound silly, but when I was poorer (I lack the disciple to still do this), I had a separate column in my spreadsheet where I simply listed everything that was one time and didn't have a category. After a couple of months of this, I looked at what was in the list and decided that I truly had some random one time stuff and that I needed a couple of new categories.
Something along these lines might work for you if your goal is to decide where your money is going. Best of luck - tracking every dollar is tough.
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haapai
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Post by haapai on Jan 5, 2011 13:54:14 GMT -5
In fairness to your husband, tracking expenditures made with currency is tricky no matter what system you use. You are both guilty of dancing around the problem for the last eighteen months or so. You disengaged from the budget. He punted and created the "cash" and "stuff" categories.
Now you're both trying to tackle the hard part with whopping amounts of guilt and pride weighing you down. It's no surprise that you are having a difficult time.
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jan 5, 2011 14:06:12 GMT -5
In fairness to your husband, tracking expenditures made with currency is tricky no matter what system you use. You are both guilty of dancing around the problem for the last eighteen months or so. You disengaged from the budget. He punted and created the "cash" and "stuff" categories. Now you're both trying to tackle the hard part with whopping amounts of guilt and pride weighing you down. It's no surprise that you are having a difficult time. Yeah, you nailed it here Haapai.
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jkapp
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Post by jkapp on Jan 5, 2011 14:34:37 GMT -5
Now you're both trying to tackle the hard part with whopping amounts of guilt and pride weighing you down. It's no surprise that you are having a difficult time. I've had friends ask me how I do this too...and I tell them that I enter items in the budget the same time I enter them in my check ledger. So at the end of the month, then balance of cash on my budget equals the balance of cash in my checking account. Now, this also required them to keep their checkbook balanced and up to date so they didn't like it
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❤ mollymouser ❤
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Post by ❤ mollymouser ❤ on Jan 5, 2011 14:49:31 GMT -5
For the most part, if we buy it at Target, it goes into our "HOUSEHOLD" category ... which covers cat litter, paper products, cleaning supplies, and cat food for the outside cats. Occasionally we pick up sale grocery items and the odd piece of clothing, but nothing huge/major ~ so it goes into "HOUSEHOLD" for us.
I suppose if you're really trying to track your spending for the moment, having detailed sub-categories may be of some value, but eventually you might find broader categories to be a bit more user-friendly.
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Post by bobbysgirl on Jan 5, 2011 14:54:23 GMT -5
What's a budget? LOL
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Post by boosmom on Jan 5, 2011 15:24:51 GMT -5
tracking the sales tax separately is good if you're in a no-income tax state.
Wow, that sounds very fiscally appropriate -- accountant-ese. I'd also just lump all household purchases together that aren't major appliances, like the shelving and plastic bins we bought at Target.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jan 5, 2011 15:36:17 GMT -5
LOL. That's me. Fiscally appropriate and sort of an accountant.
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