this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

This post is in response to Kacie's budgeting challenge over at Sense to Save. She's already on week two, and I had intended a post devoted to the week one stuff, but it didn't happen. I don't want to get too behind, so here's a combination post for the first two weeks of the challenge.

I've always had some sort of budget in place. When I was young it was very simple, but I still liked to keep track of my money and make sure I had enough for the things I wanted. I budget so I can see where my money has gone and have control over where it's going to go.
I'm always tweaking the way we budget, but currently The Tall One and I use Quicken primarily and a supplemental Excel spreadsheet. I like the simplicity of the spreadsheet, at a glance it's very easy to see what we spent our money. Quicken is very useful when it comes time to reconcile our bank and credit card accounts and for great year in review budget reports. I don't like entering everything into two different places, but for now it's okay since I haven't found another program that will give me the best of both worlds (and I am on the lookout, mainly because we switched to a Mac and need a Quicken replacement). Here's our spreadsheet template:

Click here to open a bigger one to look at

I love having the calendar there so I can compare bill due dates to pay day. And that'sthe calendar's only use, I fill it in with important dates. Directly to the right of the calendar is a Description column. I try and put the transactions right by the week in the month they occur, so if TTO gets paid on the 4th of the month and then again on the 18th, his paycheck will be entered alongside the first and third week. Each week has a grocery line, every other week has a gas for the car line. Bills are usually due the second or third week, so I try to put the appropriate bill by that week. If I go to the grocery store more than once a week, I put them all in that week, they don't each get their own line. I use the blanks to fill in things that aren't the same month after month, like doctor co-pays or clothing. the next column is what we budgeted and the final column is what was actually spent. The columns are calculated and totaled at the bottom, so it's easy to see how we're doing at any given time.

That's how I keep track of monthly expenses, the irregular ones (like car maintenance and insurance) have their own account at ING and get deposits each paycheck and sometimes more if we have a nice surplus at the end of the month. For more on how I budget with ING see this post.

It works for me! For the next month or so, until I decide to change it....