Part Time Budget

I’m terrible at budgeting.  I simply just don’t get it.  Every time I budget, I don’t seem to have enough money to pay for everything.  How do I know how much I’m going to spend on dental expenses.  I can barely put anything in savings let alone predict how many cavities I may have to pay for.

We’ll if that sounds like you, welcome to my world!  Budget is such a terrible word isn’t it?  Well, let me tell you what works for me.  I don’t budget everything imaginable such as clothing, medical, entertainment, gifts etc.  These are the things that are really not predictable and just too hard to figure out. Maybe one day I’ll get there but right now it’s just not me.

Most of us have fixed items in our spending such as mortgage payments, insurance, home owners association, car payments, etc.. It’s the non fixed items that give me a problem.  So I suggest you put anything that you can, on a fixed amount such as electric and gas if those companies offer it, go ahead and call them up and put those utilities on a fixed plan, this way there’s no guessing on the amount.

Now comes the hard part… budgeting your left over cash for everything else you need, such as food, gas and everything else.

It’s our left over cash that hurts us and gives us the temptation to spend.  Let’s say you have $500.00 left for to pay for food, gas, etc.  Take 10% of that and put it into savings. (It may not seem much but it’s a start) Most experts say that you should save 10% of your income, We’ll if I make $5000, how can I save $500?  I would have nothing left, so often I don’t save anything.

Food, entertainment, eating out, etc… ALL of this can be controlled.  Start tackling one thing at a time and create a budget for the remaining categories.

Example:
Gas $150
Food $250
Entertainment/Eating Out $50.00
Savings $50.00
 
Now strive to spend less in each of these categories and budgeting seems easy doesn’t it.