Jason and I model our budget after Dave Ramsey’s plan — he wrote Total Money Makeover and his plan has been a lifesaver. While using his tips we have paid off over $30,000 in credit card debt in less than a year. Right now we are building our savings using his same techniques.

I can’t recommend his technique enough!

I’m an accountant and I’m horrible at managing money. We sat down recently and worked out our budget, as well as me handing all money responsibilities over to the hubs. It works out much better that way and I don’t stress over it. He tells me how much spending money we have (after bills, savings, gas and groceries), and we stick to it.

I always make sure to budget a section for miscellaneous expenses [impulse buys etc]. I couldn’t figure out why I kept blowing my budget and then I figured out why… I was always buying stuff I didn’t need! Hope this helps you!

The boyfriend and my biggest stressor/fighting point/pull my hair out topic is money. I am a saver, he is a spender and we cannot seem to find a common ground. We are not at the point of marriage yet, but we do live together and I know that something has got to give in the financial department or I may go crazy. I think we need to take your lead and get things under control!

Budget is my middle name. 😉 You’re right when you say budgeting is like healthy living — it’s financially healthy living. It takes a while to get the hang of, but after a while, you’re making “swaps and additions” and it’s turning into more green in your pocket and peace of mind in your conscience.
Good luck and don’t get discouraged! You can do it!

Mint.com! i’ve started using mint.com 8 months ago and LOVE it. it pulls your checking/savings/credit card transactions and aggregates it and it intuitively assings spending categories – of course, you can change, reassign or create categories too.

it’s a visual representation of where your money is going. you can set budgets for things like groceries, rent, restaurants, insurance, etc. it’s really to see my budgets all in one spot and to be color coded (green, yellow = getting close, red = over budget). and since i’m on the computer all day and week at work, it’s SO convenient for me. there’s also an iphone app!

happy budgeting!

I think the key is to realize that a few dollars here and there really add up. Just $3 a day equals almost $1,100 in one year! …I’m still trying to grasp the idea of saving more and spending less, too. 🙂
P.S. James is so cute!!!

Honestly, I work for financial advisors who do financial planning and investing and it is even hard for me. They do a great job and their clients love them for their help but no one is perfect when it comes to this subject. 🙁

Caitlin, I am the budgeting queen! I am a low paid teacher, my husband is a full time student (we pay 100% out of pocket for his schooling) and full time worker. We live on an insanely tight budget, but have still managed to re-do most of our house, and save a lil’ money too. If ya want some tips, email me, and I’ll be happy to help ya! I will say that it takes a tremendous amount of discipline!

That zuchini eggplant bake looks yummy!

I don’t budget.. I am too disorganized for it, maybe someday when I get my act together. But, I do try really hard to save money. I very rarely buy clothes, I don’t buy coffee out anymore, I make all of my own food (but allow for one night out like you!). Good luck!

If you have an iPhone or other smartphone, look into the Spend app. My husband and I just sat down at the end of last month to create a budget since we are finally going to merge our finances. We’re pretty good about living within our means, but I was completely unaware as to where our money went and was pretty sure we were spending unnecessarily. We set specific long-term savings goals and budgets for different categories (food, household items, pets, allowances). The Spend app has helped me keep really good track of what I spend, since I can just add it in as soon as I make a purchase. It also opened my eyes to how insane our grocery bill is, which motivates me to not let any of our food go to waste!

We don’t budget….and we probably should. It’s just the smart thing to do! My main motivation not to spend is wanting to get my car and student loans paid off ASAP!! Usually keeps my spending in check!

I’m glad I’m not the only one with money woes! I’m TERRIBLE at budgeting, but honestly, I don’t HAVE a lot to budget. I pretty much never have wiggle room. And what I do have, I spend on little treats that keep me sane, like coffee and froyo 🙂

good luck figuring out your budget, caitlin! as i was reading about your monday, i was thinking how often i fall into the trap of viewing the lovely ladies of the blog world such as yourself as leading ‘perfect’ lives. not that it’s nice to see you struggle, but in a way i do feel a sense of solidarity as we all grapple with the issues in our lives. it’s clear from your approach to food and health that you and your husband will be able to weather the storm!

I don’t budget as much as I carefully track money in/money out. At least I know bi-monthly if I’m spending more or less than I earn. If I’m spending more than I earn in one two week period, I know I need to cut back in the next.
There are lots of great and useful personal finance blogs out there. Two of the very top ones are Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar. If you really want motivation and concrete tips, they are useful.

I’m not a budgeting queen, but when we went from 2 salaries to 1 (with some extra loot, but not a lot), we made MAJOR changes. These days, we can count on one salary but not too much on the other, so we still track our spending closely. What has helped is not eating out very often – that was a huge expense for us! Seriously, we probably go out twice a month, and we don’t eat at extravagant places (usually).
Also, we have monthly “family meetings” and we look at what we have in the bank and what expenses we have coming up. That is really nice because it keeps us aware of major items, such as new tires for the car.
Finally, we have learned how to say “no” to friends and family. We certainly aren’t deprived, but we do set priorities on what we can and cannot afford, and we don’t make lavish purchases without a long conversation.
Good luck – I actually wish that I had become more financially responsible 10 years ago!

Since the hubby & I have different spending habits, we decided a while back to save us much strife and aggravation by setting up separate “fun spending” accounts from our joint bank account. We each have a certain % of our paychecks automatically transferred each month to our individual fun accounts. That way, I don’t have to feel guilty about my more frivolous purchase (such as shoes, handbags, and name-brand cosmetics) coming from our bill-paying bank account. It is also nice to have that account b/c I can use it to surprise him with birthday, anniversary, and holiday gifts, which don’t show up on our joint credit card (there is a separate credit card for that account as well). In your case, since you don’t get paychecks, you could just set up one joint fun account, and have a certain amount each month deposited there to use for fun dinners, vacations, and such.
We also try to keep minimal cash in our wallets–it makes those purchases like high-end coffee and fro you add up. We have a credit card with great rewards (the citibank master card) which we have used to cash in for Best Buy gift cards, buying a HD TV, and also at Macys to buy us a bedroom furniture set. While we charge 99% of our joint purchases on that card, we always make sure we can pay that account in full each month, so we are not hit with finance charges.
Like you always say, take one step at a time, and you will get to better money management!

I don’t think I’ve ever commented, but I had to tell you: Mint.com and Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach You To Be Rich (http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/) completely changed my financial life.

Ramit’s blog title sounds like a gimmick but I found it’s extremely straightforward and helpful. He’s all about the ‘big wins’ instead of nickle and diming (saving 50 cents by ordering a small instead of a medium, etc). His idea is just like what you said — spend money extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t.

Good luck!

you can do it! once we got into a budget routine, it’s really not too bad. we follow a modified dave ramsey plan & definitely have our own personal allowances so we can get coffee or shop or whatever without breaking the bank. good luck!

I use budgetsimple.com to track our budget. I have set up a really good budget after a few months of trial and error. The key for me is to record my purchases daily in my budget tracker. If I wait until the end of the month, or even the end of the week to enter in my expenditures, I find that the amount of receipts overwhelm me and I lose my motivation. So everyday, I enter in what my husband and I have spent. That way we know how to adjust as the month goes on.
Good luck in setting up your budget, and expect that it will take a few months to really figure out a reasonable, personalized budget.

Several have already suggested it, but I ditto the mint.com sentiment! It is a great and easy tool to really keep track of where your money is going!

I liked Suze Orman’s book Young, Fabulous, and Broke. I’m honestly too cheap, so I guess it’s a matter of finding that middle ground of what are your needs and wants. Like going to Starbucks vs. making coffee at home.

Also are you writing off every thing you are allowed as a business owner?

We use mint.com to help keep our budget in check. It sends us email alerts when we get close to over spending. When we first sat down to work out a budget I was worried we’d have to give up everything fun, but we didn’t have to do that. Good luck!

I’m a CPA so I guess it’s just in my nature to be pretty detailed with our budget, not saying we always stick to it 100%, but I think overall we do pretty well!

Hi! I budget and I use http://www.mint.com because I am a visual person and they make nice color coded graphs and bar charts. I find that it has helped make me more aware of where all my money is going.

I’ve been budgeting myself for year. In fact I wasn’t allowed to have an allowance unless I came up with a budget. My father, the uber saver, always taught me to budget with only 90% of my money (including money to put into saving and emergency money etc). That way you always have 10% left over no matter what.

I am also dealing with a financial crisis, and after tracking my spending habits, I realized that it was the little expenses that were killing my bank account. It’s easy to say “I won’t buy those $150 shoes because they’re too expensive.” But when it’s small, daily expenses, it’s harder to reason with yourself. For example, I was getting coffee from Starbucks every morning, which didn’t seem costly at the moment I was buying it. In reality, it equals about $100 each month. That’s also the equivalent of buying 8 pairs of those $150 shoes each year, but you don’t see it until it all adds up. My point is that I’d rather have 8 pairs of nice shoes 😉

I’m pretty cheap by nature so I don’t formally budget, but I do try to keep a tally of little expenses like coffees, eating out, etc… Those really add up. I also try to keep things in balance. If I’ve been eating out a lot, I’ll have more pot-lucks and dinners at home for a few weeks. Somehow it works for me.

Hmm this post reminds me of my budgeting too. I am an impulsive buyer so I avoid going to the malls and boutiques where I know are so tempting.
So whenever I go out, i just carry cash that I need. Unless I’m out for some serious shopping. I will try to list all expenses everyday, and at the end of the month, I can evaluate where I spend most.

When the BF and I were months away from moving in together (close to this time last year), I had to admit to him that I had a hefty amount of debt to pay off before we could actually move in together. He helped me figure out a realistic budget and within a year I’ll have paid off all my debt! There was one setback: quitting my crappy job and being out of work for 3 weeks, but it’s been manageable. My budget allowed for spending money so we’ve been able to take one vacation (a weekend away) and do extra things (dinners out, movies, etc).

I haven’t heard of Dave Ramsey or Total Money Makeover but it seems to be pretty popular and effective. I think I might check it out for some money saving tips.

Mint.com, as mentioned above, is really great. I have never been good at personal finances either, but this year I really needed to buckle down and stick to a budget. I needed something easy to use and free because I work full time and I am a part-time grad student. Mint has met all those requirements for me. I have used Mint since March of this year, and it has helped a ton with tracking my finances and saved me a lot of money. It is also easy to use, and sends you text messages when you are close to meeting your budget. Plus, it sends weekly e-mailed finance updates. My best friend who is CPA uses it for all her family budgeting too! The other site I would suggest is wisebread.com. This is a nice and very usefully website with articles on saving money in sometimes odd and often entertaining ways. Because of one article I read I stopped buying bath salts and body spray and began blending my own! This one little change has saved me almost $100 this year! Good luck!

Before I met Himself I never budgeted. I lived completely hand to mouth and although I didn’t spend more than I made (I was working as a paralegal then so even I had difficulty spending more than that salary), I ended every month on £0 and had no savings.

Himself introduced me to his magical Excel budget sheet. It changed my life. It changed my life to the point where I was able to teach yoga full time (thus cutting my income by about two thirds) becasue I knew how to budget. It’s such a simple spreadsheet, just money in and money out but seeing what you spend and what on changes your attitude to money completely.

The thing is it all depends on priorities. I didn’t want to work the paralegal grind anymore but to be able to live the life I wanted I had to give up on a lot financially. For instance we eat out about 3 times a year (unless my dad is paying of course!!), we have no car, we haven’t been on holiday for two years. That sounds grim right? But it isn’t because we have each other and the life we want and every time we feel it’s miserable we remember how misreable we were when we both went into an office every day (I used to cry myself to sleep at night – haven’t done that in a long time!)

The hardest thing I’ve found about working for ourselves in taxes. In the UK if you have a “proper job” you pay tax as you earn so it comes out of your salary before the salary even goes in the bank. Now we have to pay our taxes every January. It’s really annoying when that bill comes through….

Good luck with everything. I always find if you really want something you will get there. It’s just a case of re-prioritising and remembering why you are doing this! 🙂

I always use a budget. I know what my essentials cost, then have a limit for buying food (and I plan all my food so I can meet it), and then have leftover money for entertainment, clothes etc. I draw this money out and keep it in cash rather than spending on cards, because if I spend on cards I lose track.

I couldn’t manage without a budget. I like buying things too much.

My husband is in grad school and working very part-time, so we’re mostly living off of my income, which isn’t huge. What helps us is that a set portion of every paycheck gets direct-deposited to a savings account and never touches our checking account. The other thing is, we take our “grocery”” and “entertainment” budget out in cash every two weeks when I get paid and it’s much easier to re-think a purchase when the tangible money in your wallet is dwindling.

My husband “built” an Excel spreadsheet that we use every month. Each month, we enter our income amounts into it, and it calculates everything else for us. For instance, we know each month how much to save, give to our church, donate, etc. And it’s all based off of what we make.
I highly recommend paying yourself (even if its a little bit) each month(we call it the “D” fund, or discretionary fund). This keeps us sane! It is to be used only for something we want, and we each get our own money. If we want something more expensive (like I wanted a new camera) then I have to save for it. In addition, we also “save” each month for future computers, cars, and a house down payment. We essentially “pay” ourselves for these things so we don’t have to make payments to someone else later (plus interest).
Good luck! It’s a pain to budget, but once you get in the habit, it’s not so bad. I have to keep in mind: short-term sanity and long-term goals!:)

I love budgeting – probably because I’ve had to climb out of debt a couple of times and I’m determined never to go back!

I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned in other comments but I highly recommend Gail Vaz Oxlade’s website. She has lots of tools you can use and her blog is always interesting too. It was by watching her show and following a lot of her advice that budgeting and finances finally ‘clicked’ for me and I’m forever greatful for that!

Good luck.

The reason that I don’t like Mint.com is it doesn’t allow me to put in all of my resources, like some of the sites won’t work for my car loan, etc., PLUS, i don’t want a machine to do it for me. I want to be able to do it myself and understand it.

I highly, highly recommend the book “I’ll Teach You To Be Rich.” While the title sounds like a silly scam, the book is actually all about getting a handle on your money in your 20’s. My boyfriend gave it to me to read after I was freakin’ out about having no idea how to handle my finances.

The book is broken into chapters with really simple to understand tips. At the end of each chapter it gives you three to four action items to do immediately to get a handle on a certain aspect of your finances (credit, debt, your savings account, etc.)

By the time I finished reading the book and completing all the steps, I’d set up a realistic budget and still managed to find money to sock into savings. The author’s take is something is better than nothing and knowing even a little bit about what you’re doing will pay off huge in the end.

I seriously can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s friendly and easy to understand and yea it pretty much completely changed the way I look at money.

I am absolutely awesome at making a kickass budget and then never looking at it ever again….. 😉

Do you use something to track your expenses?

We don’t have a real budget or anything, but I do know approximately how much I have to spend each month. My husband pays all house bills (mortgage, electricity, cable etc) plus dinners out and I pay for everything else (groceries, wedding gifts, clothes shopping, travel, etc). I know how much I can spend and how much I am supposed to save and when I get close to that number I start scrimping a bit until the end of the month (usually about 4-5 days before the month is over). It took about 6 months to get into the right range (I overspent a LOT in those first months) but now I have it down pat!

Good luck!

I’ve had a few breakdowns about our finances over the years too and we had to start a budget to get us on track, so I can completely relate. When you’re stressed take a big breath because it WILL be okay. If you want an example of a monthly budget (not that we do it perfect, just what works for us) we each put 10% in retirement before taxes, 13% goes to liquid savings, 25% goes to mortgage, 25% goes to bills (car payment, student loans, tv/internet, phones, insurance, electric) and that leaves about 25% for living (food + shopping). Hope that helps and good luck!