On a Budget Series – Part 5: Budget Workbooks

Hello. Today we are discussing Budget Workbooks as part of my “On a Budget” Series. 

There are tons of free files on the Web related to personal budgeting and finance, or you can simply create your own in MS Excel or another database or spreadsheet program. Although I am pretty efficient in MS® Excel, I see no point in reinventing the wheel so when I started envisioning my financial tracker I decided to look to the Web to see if there was a file already created that would give me a good start.

Today, I’m sharing the budget workbook that I am currently using to track and improve my financial health in its original form from the original creator.

Money Manager by Vertex42

My actual 2013 Personal Finance and Budget Workbook incorporates a variety of edits to provide a better tracking solution for my particular situation so don’t be afraid to use an already existing document as a starting point for your tracking needs. Over-time you can develop it into the perfect solution for you.

Feel free to join in if you’d like to share your budgeting tips and/or progress.

Check back tomorrow for “On a Budget Series – Part 6: Ways to Earn Extra Income”

Until next time!

On a Budget Series – Part 4: Steps to Success

As Part 4 of my “On a Budget” series, I’m here today to share with you some ideas for successfully improving your financial health. These are basic ideas that can be applied depending on your situation.

• Consistent tracking/keep your checkbook balanced
• Move in with family or get a roommate
• Be conscious of your eating out frequency
• Determine if you really need that item in your cart
• Give your new spending plan time to show whether it is improving your situation or not

To go along with my recommended steps to success, below are more specific steps that can assist me and my current situation in improving my financial health along with the expected results.

1. Track EVERYTHING
• My detailed 2013 Personal Finance & Budget Workbook provides a variety of tracking worksheets and reports that will help me achieve my goal of increasing my financial health and getting my expense percentages in line with Dave Ramsey’s recommendations.
2. My boyfriend will be moving in soon which will help decrease my living expenses, thus lowering my expense to income range for housing.
• Based on my January income, this would put me in the 48% range rather than 62%. It still isn’t 25%-35% but it’s a start in the right direction.
• Since I am in a lease for another 3 months, having my boyfriend chip in is the only solution I have at the moment to reduce my income range for housing. I will be looking into alternative rental properties that will help decrease the chunk of change being gobbled-up each month for housing.
3. Decrease the frequency of eating out. Eating out is so much easier than going to the kitchen and making something; however, the expense adds up – quickly.
• I am going to try and limit the eating out to once/week during February which will help decrease the amount of my income that goes towards food.
4. Deciding whether the items in my cart are really necessary and have an immediate purpose.
• I will ask myself questions like:
• What is this item’s purpose?
• It is needed right now or can the project/purpose wait?
• If I determine the item is needed then I’ll comparison shop via my smartphone to ensure I’m getting the best possible deal.
5. I am committing to this tracking and spending plan for the entire 2013 year.
• I will be tracking it on a weekly basis to see what changes may be needed throughout the year to increase my results and chances for success.

Feel free to join in if you’d like to share your budgeting tips and/or progress.

Check back tomorrow for “On a Budget Series – Part 5: Budget Workbooks”

I’ll be sharing the tracking sheet I found to be useful in my financial health improvement journey.

Until next time!

On a Budget Series – Part 3: Being Aware of Your Finances

If you’re following along with my “On a Budget” Series, today I’m covering how I’m going to accomplish my budget re-vamp and re-focus. I have created a 2013 Personal Finance & Budget Workbook that I am using to track all of my expected bills along with all other transactions throughout each month. 

I won’t bore you with my monthly bill specifics; instead, as stated yesterday, I’m going to focus on getting my expenses in line with the recommended percentages. You probably noticed yesterday that I am definitely guilty of living above my means and it’s time I changed that.

Yesterday I shared my percentage goals based on Dave Ramsey’s suggested percentages. Today I’m going to share with you where I ended up in January (note: this was my first month of tracking so prepare for some red flags)…

I use this prettified graph to display the currently ugly data of where my finances are going each month.

Here’s the data in its ugly form:

Item	Actual %
Savings	0.0%
Charitable Gifts	0.0%
Housing	65.2%
Utilities	22.9%
Food	19.9%
Transportation	17.4%
Medical/Health	1.1%
Clothing/Miscellaneous	0.0%
Personal/Daily Living	1.1%
Recreation/Entertainment	11.0%
Debts	4.3%

As you can see, my housing expense takes up a huge part of my finances and I am way above the recommended percentage of 25%-35%. I definitely have some areas to focus on. However, before I can work on the areas currently showing 0.0%, I need to free up some finances in the areas that exceed my goal %. I need to revamp my finances and fast.

Feel free to join in if you’d like to share your budgeting tips and/or progress.

Check back tomorrow for “On a Budget Series – Part 4: Steps to Success.”

Until next time!