Has anyone else noticed that May is almost half over?
I've been in such a haze. It really feels so icky to fall down, no matter what your path is. Whether you're embarking upon a health path, career, relational, a sport or hobby, or a financial path falling off just sucks. <Shake it off, shake it off> Spring is in full bloom. My back is finally starting to feel a bit better. Every day is a new day.
Have you ever wondered how many people sit down and budget every week? I've been seriously thinking about that today. Generally I have a solid budget every week/ month. When I set it, when I stick to it life is pretty great. There's very little to worry about when you know that your money is behaving. Granted you have to say no to things you cannot afford. You have to actually think about your purchases. And you have to put effort into planning your pennies' purpose. But I'm pretty sure that most people just collect a pay check and spend money with very little thought involved. I do not think most people budget.
Okay, you are reading a financial blog but really truly curious, do you follow a weekly budget? Do you know what's coming in, what's going out and where it's going? Or do you just collect a paycheck and then spend it?
We do :) We sit down every weekend with my Hubby and go through our budget and plan the next week.
ReplyDeleteawesome!
DeleteI've always kept track of mine and my husband's spending, but we only recently started budgeting. Well, I created the budget. My husband just agreed to it. He doesn't like to talk about money so whatever I come up with works for him. Not exactly the way I want things to work but what can you do?
ReplyDeleteOh do I ever understand. Does he stick to it pretty much? My husband doesn't want to hear a single word about money but he's also pretty bad at sticking to the budget I draw up. Which isn't fair since he refuses to do a budget with me.
DeleteThat's not fair at all :( We've only been budgeting for half a month now but so far he's sticking to it. He laughed when I gave him envelopes to use cash for purchases so now he only gets to carry cash for his energy drinks. He still carries around a check card so he could cheat at any time but so far he's sticking to cash for energy drink purchases.
DeleteI write down everything we earn and spend. WE stick pretty well to our monthly budgets for food and entertainment too. I tend to only check if we actually came in under budget at the end of the month though!
ReplyDeleteYou're great with money! I get inspiration from you for sure.
DeleteMy husband hates discussing money. I do all the finances and that includes budgeting.
ReplyDeleteSeems to be a bit of a trend, husband's not wanting to deal with money.
DeleteWe budget week to week and month to month. I keep the finances in our home. My husband likes this as it relieves him from the stress since he has such a stressful job. He knows I'm such a tightwad, so he never worries that I will be frivolous with his paycheck!
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DeleteI wish I could plan budget every week. Right now, I am trying to get out of debts, and stick to a monthly budget. Very hard for me right now, but I am doing better than I was! Baby steps they say...
ReplyDeletebaby steps indeed! good luck with sticking to a budget though. In my opinion it's the number one thing when getting out of debt.
DeleteWe have a very detailed budget. After tracking spending for two years, I have estimated spend by category budgeted. We set goals annually and five years out (e.g I know the kids will need braces in 20xx. I then budget everything by pay cycle based on the timeframe for my goal and the calendar of events coming that next 30 days or so- if I know I have a birthday party or whatever I see if my budgeted amount will cover it or if I need to limit another "envelope" to cover. It sounds complicated but it's really not. I know the amount of my next savings goal, set a timeline and work backwards, then adjust for life along the way. It turns out that the averages over two years are pretty accurate, so the sinking funds I have for things like kids sports and school stuff get totally exhausted in the spring and get built back up over the summer. I should mention that I actually lay out each paycheck for the whole year at once in dec/jan- so I have a forecast that just gets edited. The first year it took a whole, but now it's a copy/paste exercise in excel that takes maybe an hour and I can see easily if I am going to be able to meet my goals for that year or things need to be adjusted.
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