How true is that? I finally sat down and put together a budget. I asked my spouse to look at it, make changes, and plug in his numbers. He said that he would and then he told me he already had a budget on his msmoney. I said, "You never told me that." He said, "You never asked." Touche.
I have discovered that a budget is a work in progress. I compare it to fitness and weight loss. I'm going to have to constantly work at it. It's perpetual.
There are 12 expense categories on our spreadsheet, but only 8 apply to just me.
Debt
Food
Giving
Insurance
Investment
Personal
Savings
Transportation
Because I have been lax in tracking my spending, (all right, I've never tracked it) I took a look at my bank accout for October to plug in the figures. In October I spent approximately $2,284. My net income from my full-time job and my snowflaking job was $2,891. That means at the end of October I should have had $607 left over. I never saw it. Where is it??????? Where did it go??????? I'ts no wonder these debt shackles are so constricting.
Perhaps I should begin tracking my spending right now! What do you think?
Friday, November 9, 2007
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
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4 comments:
I have been there, done that. it's like when you end up getting an odd sock out of the dryer. Where did the other one go?
I used to find that when we didn't keep track of our spending, we didn't realise that $5.00 here $10.00 there soon adds up. It's amazing how fast you can get through money and not realize where it has gone!
How right you are.
Definitely start tracking. Sometimes it's a headache, but it was beautiful to see at the end of last month that we'd save 1/3 of our income. Priceless.
Tracking every penny is nothing short of an amazing, eye-opening experience! Go for it. It might just be me, but I don't find it all that difficult. But then, I almost never use cash and therefore almost without exception have a paper trail for every penny I spend.
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