Budgeting: do you, and how?

[Snow as White]

ah budgets. such an elusive unicorn they can be.

i am more along the lines of "money in should be greater than money out." my bf is the king of frugality and takes it to an art form. he's a phd student now and despite only making 27k a year, is able to put aside something insane like 12k into his investment portfolios.

the plan when we marry is for him to take over the finance portion. we've agreed that we will each get a future to decide amount as our fun spending money on hobbies or lunches out with friends or whatever. and that the rest is used for living expenses, investments, and savings. large items like cars will be agreed upon by both so we are both comfortable financially.

i also use cash for groceries and place them into four envelopes to draw from. using my debit card is too brainless and the numbers are just numbers. having actual cash forces me to contemplate do i REALLY need these frozen fruit things as much as I feel I cannot live without them rightnow.

 

[Yuurei]

What is FOMO?

Fear of missing out.
I know cuz I get that too.

Currently, I just don't buy anything extra. I pay rent, I pay the electric bill.

90% of the vegetables I eat come from my garden and once a month or so I buy a shit ton of meat from a very fairly priced butcher about 30 mi out of town.
Really, my greatest ( only) expense is coffee. We save about 200$ a month making cold brew at home.

With this budget I have enough to get food and coffee when I am out for the day. It isn't a lot but it's enough and I'm quite happy. (...financially)

 

[Lark]

I love this thread. Subscribed.

I like money matters and finance, I've been reading and learning more about it for a while and wish that I could have learned more much, much earlier.

In part it was my own fault, I'd convinced myself that beyond a simple parsimony there wasnt anything to learn other than what may have been a betrayal of my principles, or so I suspected, though I think those sorts of self-defeating ideas are something that reinforces a certain mal-distribution of resources in the economy.

 

[Galena]

I have begun organizing this with an app in the last month, upon figuring out that I was not doing as well with a less detailed method than I imagined. There are the regular payments, a spot for goal money, and then there are categories for inessentials which are open to more shuffling of money between them per the unique features of the day or month just so long as it's not taken from the first two areas unless absolutely necessary.

The thing I have learned that struck me the most was that a place for entertainment money is more than frivolous - actually learned something valuable about pleasure in general. That is, I did not put one in to begin with because I'm going on a trip soon and figured I would hold out, but then later decided to shuffle a small amount of money into having a meal out one evening where I could sit in the sun. That brief pleasure somehow actually lifted the mood of the rest of the week. Maybe something zero-cost could have done the same thing, but that didn't bother me. To me, the effect was still worth what I did pay.

 

[Yuurei]

I have begun organizing this with an app in the last month, upon figuring out that I was not doing as well with a less detailed method than I imagined. There are the regular payments, a spot for goal money, and then there are categories for inessentials which are open to more shuffling of money between them per the unique features of the day or month just so long as it's not taken from the first two areas unless absolutely necessary.

The thing I have learned that struck me the most was that a place for entertainment money is more than frivolous - actually learned something valuable about pleasure in general. That is, I did not put one in to begin with because I'm going on a trip soon and figured I would hold out, but then later decided to shuffle a small amount of money into having a meal out one evening where I could sit in the sun. That brief pleasure somehow actually lifted the mood of the rest of the week. Maybe something zero-cost could have done the same thing, but that didn't bother me. To me, the effect was still worth what I did pay.

I find thatjust a little bit of sun and nature is enough for me...but even that requires bus fare.

 

[Lark]

I reckon it would be awesome to have one of those Excel sheets for income and expenditure but you figure I'd need to have more specific savings and spending plans for it to make sense.

I just generally try to save as much as I can each month, I'm pretty parsimonious so its not that difficult, I like to shop for lower prices and bargains (probably more than I like buying anything per se) and sometimes I take pleasure in money saved or not spent as much as giving way to the temptation to buy something as a lot of the time if I had bought it I wouldnt be able to use it right away (if its a book which is what I buy most often). However, I know you're supposed to try and save about 70% of your after tax income, at least that's what I've read.

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9 Tips for Rock-Solid Financial Health From the World's Richest People | LIVESTRONG.COM

I found this a while back, its probably pretty light weight but maybe someone will find it interesting.

 

[Maou]

Im great at budgeting, and managing money. I can calculate to what needs a dollar more or less by week, month, or even day.

The problem is my ESTP boyfriend, who is exactly like [MENTION=6109]Halla74[/MENTION] 's except he is in control of his money. You have no fucking idea, how much I wanna explode when it comes to the budget.

 

[EJCC]

Everything else goes partly into paying down my credit card debt, partly into my 401k, and mostly into my savings account. I haven't achieved 50/20/30 but I'm around 55/15/30 ish, which isn't bad.

Goal: 50/30/20
Six months ago: 55/30/15
Now that I pay less in rent: 52/27/21

progress!