Here’s How I’m Spending my Money, Lately
A few weeks ago, one weekend evening, I sat down with my laptop, a bundle of receipts and some paper. I was on a mission: a mission to analyze my spending.
Since July, I’ve been tracking/budgeting my money through Budget. Here’s what that looked like: every other Friday, I’d get a paycheck auto-deposited into my bank account. Sometime that weekend, I’d manually enter the payment into my budget, allocate it (each time) into envelopes, and be done. I do almost all my spending through my credit/debit card, out of my bank account, so I would record purchases in my checkbook during the week. Every few days, I’d enter those into Budget, removing money from envelopes accordingly.
This was good–I was spending within a predetermined limit–and bad–that limit fluctuated each month.
So I did something about it.
In a kind of elaborate Excel spreadsheet that made sense to me I figured out how much I’d been spending in every category on average. Here’s what I found: only half or less of my money is set spending (giving and saving). The rest goes to a myriad of things: restaurants, clothes, toiletries, gas, other gifts, etc.
Most months, I’d still have extra money (gravy, if you will) just sitting around. Sometimes I’d leave it in the envelope, padding it for future purchases. Sometimes I’d leave it in the envelope, forgetting about it.
So here’s what I’ve changed:
1) New Categories: I never spent from the “entertainment” envelope, so I redesigned that to be my ER fund. This envelope will get a set $75 every pay check, but it will also start receiving extra, otherwise unallocated funds each month.
I’ve been thinking of moving out, and whether it’s soon or in the future, I want to have the money for home stuff when I need it. So I made a “household” envelope, which will be getting a set amount of money and which will become an ING very soon. It came in handy, by the way, when I decided to redo my bedroom–an investment in the future, I say.
2) Scheduled Allocations: Now, every paycheck (from both jobs) will be depositing the same set amount into each envelope. This way, all I need to do is click “pay” every two weeks. The money will be the same, though I can always move stuff around if I need to.
3) Rethought Priorities: I really don’t need $200 each month for clothes, even if I *can* put it in there. Sometimes I’d let myself think I had to spend, since the money was in the envelope. I lowered the amount to go there, realizing I usually had leftovers anyway. This will help me put money into smarter resources like my ING accounts, my IRA, my personal stock portfolio and into giving.
4) Knowledge: Now I know what I spend–I mean, really know. While I can’t recite numbers off the top of my head, I can easily consult my charts, and I can give you a ballpark idea. It’s nice, and it’s empowering.
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Filed under budgeting, gifting, shopping, the everyday |
7 Responses to “Here’s How I’m Spending my Money, Lately”
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I’ve been able to open up a 401k through my current job which is nice as I’ve never had one before. You seem a lot like me in shopping and our attitudes!
I also opened a high yield savings account through capital one, which I’m going to deposit money into via automatic deposit. Unforiately my job is a phone sales job which is only part-time. I’d love to find a part-time job in my field…English graduate but I can’t.
You have a degree in English? What kinds of jobs have you considered?
tutoring? editing? publishing?
What part of your undergrad did you like best? I’m a firm believer in the value of our subject… I hope you find a company that agrees!
Excellent,
Essentially I have envelope funds set up as well. I set up a bunch of OpenOffice spreadsheets.
For a long time we have had one used to allocate money we would deposit into a savings account. A car account, a Philippines account, etc. With the aid of that system I was able to pay a $800-$900 without a worry (well, you know what I mean).
We had a for real envelope account and we would stuff cash into it, but I got worried about theft & fire plus the fact it wasn’t working. So I used the spreadsheet approach.
I have built a set of spreadsheets to track our expenses. I am hoping in a month or two we will have a real good grasp on where our money is going.
Oh my, Did I write that? Yes I did, at an English grad student’s blog too!
>Essentially I have envelope funds set up as well. I set up a >bunch of OpenOffice spreadsheets.
My wife and I have one savings account, we use OpenOffice’s Calc spreadsheet to track allocations to the various “envelopes”.
>For a long time we have had one used to allocate money we >would deposit into a savings account. A car account, a >Philippines account, etc. With the aid of that system I was >able to pay a $800-$900 without a worry (well, you know >what I mean).
For a long time now we have used this system to allocate money. For example one of our “accounts” is a car account and this system came in very handy when we were hit with a $900 car repair, we paid with our credit card, but were able to pay the credit card charge immediately.
>We had a for real envelope account and we would stuff cash >into it, but I got worried about theft & fire plus the fact it >wasn’t working. So I used the spreadsheet approach.
In our closet we used to have an envelope into which we stuff $20 bills, again it came in handy, but fire & theft potential worried myself, plus the money was not earning any interest, so we opened up a savings account with our bank and started tracking the allocations via spreadsheet.
>I have built a set of spreadsheets to track our expenses. I am >hoping in a month or two we will have a real good grasp on >where our money is going.
Wow! This paragraph makes sense!
Mark,
Sounds like a great plan to try and analyze your money. I had to laugh at the stuffing money into real-life envelopes… it reminded me of my grandma, who hid money under her bed, in jars in the bathroom, etc. I hadn’t thought about that in such a long time, and it was actually sort of sweet to remember.
Best wishes to you, and thanks for visiting!
I’m curious since you didn’t spend in the entertainment envelope. What do you define as entertainment? What about movie tickets or blockbuster movie rentals? Would you consider that entertainment?
I’ve managed to keep my entertainment budget to less than $20 the last few months and on some rare months, only spent $5 for a museum ticket. You must’ve found a lot of free entertainment in Chicago!
Good question, sf. I guess what I meant was I was *hardly ever* using the entertainment envelope and could just as easily combine it with something else.
Let me explain: In the past several months, I’ve seen maybe two movies in the theater, and they were Saturday matinees for $5. So that’s $10. Anytime I’ve rented, it’s been red box ($1) and that was maybe once (?). I haven’t seen any shows or gone to any clubs. We’ve got cable at home, and dining out comes from the restaurant envelope.
Anyway, I now also have a “services” envelope for things like haircuts, medical co-pays, or the occasional movie.
On the subject of free Chicago activities, there are many, in fact! I’ll make that another post soon.