So, I want to know who here REALLY has a budget and sticks to it. We don't need to know how much you make or whatever, unless you want to go that far. Mainly spill out your %'s and what they are allocated too? I need one for myself. Reading online kills me, because they all seem to have unrealistic numbers. Post up!
I spend every dollar on paper before I even get my paycheck. Don't worry so much about % until you get some realistic numbers down first. Food is the nasty number in our budget, between groceries and eating out, it is a bigger % than I would of expected.
I do. EVERY month i put my paycheck in my MM account take out a set amount( automated transfer to my checking) and use that. never have gone over =) so, here we go i take out 28% of my salary every month 40% of that is rent, 10% is insurance, rest i use for food/gas/going out. One thing that helped me save a BUNCH of cash is remembering to think twice before spending a cent.. and NEVER EVERY do/get anything over your own means.
the way I've learned to do it is to write down...or use excel as its my best friend when it comes to money...type up everything you pay monthly...i always made it a goal to pay off the things that could be paid off..ccbills...etc...i also take 20% of what I make and store it in a separate acct that I don't have a debit card for...if you don't pay yourself first then you won't build up that emergency fund/nest egg....then see how much you have left over from your check and go from there...just don't make it a habit to spend that extra % a month...just know its there if you need it...sorry if this doesn't make sense as I'm trying my best to explain..
Parents, school, reading, and experience. My money management skills are not bad, just to clairify. I read SOOO much that I want to see if others are doing similar actions or new trends. I am always looking for new strategies to manage my money. I am paying off some things so I changed my methodlogy. I just seem to go over, mainly eating out, as BKiller posted above.
Makes perfect sense! My excel spreadsheet is a monster, full of formulas and calculations. I like to see how everything affects one another. I recently reduced my "hide away money" (as i like to call it) to fund the CCbills payoff.
If you're not Excel skilled (like me) there's plenty of freeware self budgeting programs that are pretty neat. most banks actually have alot of expense tools on their websites, WaMu and Wachovia come to mind. I have different budget strategies depending on my given debt level at that time.
Well spill your beans man, lol! I work in Excel and Access all day, everyday. It has helped me numerous times!
curious for why u r trying to budget..like r u saving for something? trying pay something off or is $ just becoming tight? (if u wana say of course) that may help to give you a bit of direction
Paying off CCbills, saving for a house....... Thats really it. I have my 401k w/ company match going but I am never touching that.
type up your bills you have to pay everymonth.....like rent, car, insurance..etc...then see how much left over u can put towards those ccbills...just make it a goal every month to be able to pay as much as possible to those ccbills...with out strapping urself of course. also check out balance transfers w a 0 % or smaller % rate then the interest rate you're paying now. cut out the little things..starbucks...smoking..etc..just remember all that can be put towards ur ccbill....also start taking ur lunch to work instead of eating out. all this easier said then done of course. just gotta make it all apart of ur daily routine... as far as saving for a house...take a percentage of ur income and start putting that into an account you can do ur best not to touch again making that daily/weekly/monthly part of ur life..
well, the biggest concern is actually first how many people you owe, not how much you owe. Owing fewer people is always better, even if you've got order's of magnitude more money. I'd rather have a 60k to one student loan than 30k to 5 credit cards, or something (and thats not even mentioning all the interest). The main reason i mention that before any expenses is because in your first post you were asking for percentages. I don't work in fixed percentages, because if you have fiscal discipline, then you can be flexible from month to month as needed. If I have debt with interest greater than 5%, then I cut off most saving and incidental spending until that debt is paid.
I was roughly on % allocation of funds. The thread kinda changed, but its all good info. Some people live off 30% of their pay just to stack the bank, lol. Highest interest rate debt gets wiped first, they usually have the highest minimums (if revolving...).
very true! thats why I took part time job to accelerate my goals. not stressful at all, yet a very good change of scenery from the office, lol.
You know what helped me the most....I started keeping a register in my wallet and I started writing down every purchase. That woke me up to where I was wasting money.
Damnit, I am going to do that! As hard as it may be, I am going to do it! Time to crack down on conveinence stores, random wal-mart trips, lol.....
Convienence stores KILLED me. That drink and snack here and there adds up. That and going out for lunch every day. I spent $60 on a minifridge and it's at my desk at work. Guess what's in it....small things of yogurt and sandwich items. I save almost $200 a month doing that.
Not looking forward to this, but we are bout to do that ourselves. Going to get the few items of debt we have gone. 2 student loans and 1 car note ...woo hoo.
now you would THINK high interest automatically gets wiped out first. but thats not necessarily the case. What you actually want is minimum payments EXCEPT for the one closest to being balanced. That one you sink any extra you can to pay off quickly. Then once its gone, you can take that minimum payment and snowball it into a different debt account. I've run math models that have saved me months of being in debt trouble using this method.
^^^Thats what Dave Ramsey says!! knocked out 3k in debt on bartenders pay in 6 months...it works and its stress free having no debt.
well, mr ramsey is a little more..... spiritually minded in his financial management approach. a little preachy for my taste. I tend to look more at Clark Howard's info...
In answer to your original question, the %s that Dave Ramsey recommends for a normal family are: Savings 5-10 Housing 25-35 Utilities 5-10 Food 5-15 Transportation 10-15 Clothing 2-7 Medical/Health 5-10 Personal 5-10 Recreation 5-10 Debts 5-10 Giving 10-15 This are obviously ballpark figures but at least gives you a place to start. Food is my weakness. I am a grad of Financial Peace University. Completely changed my life! I recommend it for anyone that doesn't have a plan that is working for their future.
I have done it as well, and it has worked great. Only debt I have is a car payment and mortgage. 4 yrs ago probably around 15k in debt.
I have to really disagree. The higher the interest, the more you pay over time. Paying the minimum on the lower IR cards allows you to pay more to the high IR card. The snowball effect is for people who need to see/feel the immediate payoff. It looks good, but you end up paying ALOT more due the high IR of the other cards. By paying off the credit cards and loans with the higher interest rates first minimizes costs to become debt-free faster than the smallest-balance approach.
balance transfer offer FTW....see if you can find something with some of your current credit card companies...or there are some that offer 0% on transfer balances for like 6 months...i regularly receive credit card checks/balance transfer offers from them....also check out www.bankrate.com as the usually have some good info on there
I use a budget and actually keep track of all of my expenses. I pay myself (various accounts for different purposes) at the beggining of the month. I also have all of my permanent expenses written out. Other expenses such as food, entertainment, gas, groceries, misc., I set a budget for and try to spend within that limit. I allow myself to overspend a little bit here and there because I actually end up making more by the endo of the month than the budget I'm trying to live on. The leftover money at the end of the month, I put into savings, or if there is anything I need or have been wanting, I may put it towards that. It has caused me to really cut back on needless things and eating out at lunch, etc. I'm throwing more than ever into savings and I've actually lost weight due to hardly ever eating fast food anymore.
Thats not quite true. Okay here's the deal Assume you have 2 debts. one is $500 @ %10, one is $5500 at %20. lets say both debts are calculated at a 2% minimum payment figure. That means you have a minimum payment of $10, and $110. Lets say you have $170 you can budget to pay down debt. (even if your minimum total is only $120) so lets take 2 paths, the first is the 'attack the big debt high interest first.' You'll make minimum payments on the small one, and then put the leftovers stacked on the big payment, like this: $10 $160 With a minimum payment only, it will take 65 months to pay off the little $500, and you'll pay $150 in interest. With a 160$ payment, it will take you 52 months to pay off the $5500, and pay $2736 in interest. So on month 53, you'll have enough to pay the ~$115 left on the other debt in one payment. ---- lets assume instead you take that $50 of float and attack the nearest thing to be paid off, first. $60 $110 With a minimum payment only on the $5500 debt, it will take you 68 YEARS (thats 827 months) to finish payment and you'll have paid $25,600 in interest. With a $60 payment on the $500 debt, you'll have it paid off in 9 months with only $20 in interest. By that 9th month, your big debt will still be at $5340, but you will have already paid $830 in interest alone. Then on month 10, you pay the entire budget to the big debt, all $170. The remaining balance is paid off in 44 months. You add them together and you have 54 months. So in this example where the high interest is also the highest debt, the difference for the snowball method is not staggering, its 1 month. The advantage become alot more apparent if we tweak other factors. But the nicest thing about the snowball version is that you owe 2 people for 10 months, and then one person for 4 years. Without snowballing, you owe 2 people for 5 years. That has a long term impact on your credit rating by owing more people also. Guess under which conditions its easier to get a %0 balance transfer offer? Say at month 12, you get a 0% offer for a year on a transfer. You're transferring ~$4300, but keep making $170 payments for that whole year. Your balance drops to $2260. Even if the interest rate shoots back up to %20, you'll still be done by month 40 instead.
For 2 cards, maybe, lol. I stress the MAYBE....... Each month, pay the minimum balance on each credit card except the one with the highest interest rate. On the credit card with the highest interest rate, pay the minimum balance PLUS the additional amount you've identified to reduce your credit card debt each month. Continue to do this until the first credit card (the one with the highest interest rate) is paid off entirely. Then take the amount you were paying on that credit card (which is now paid off) plus the amount of the minimum balance on the second credit card, and apply the total to the second credit card each month until the balance is paid off, continuing to pay the minimum balance on all the other credit cards. Continue crunching your payments on the credit card with the highest interest rate as described above, until all credit card debts are paid off.