Personal Budgeting

[jwslam]

Wondering how much time people spend working out their personal finances on a month to month budgeting...

I literally don't budget for anything and maybe I should start?

[CompletelyNumb]

I never used to do personal budgets. I was debt free, 6 figure income, money in the bank.

Then the oil crash happened. I haven't done anything in oil in over a year. My income has dropped over 80%. I have debt. I can't afford things.

So now I do a budget every month, and track my spending::income weekly

[FraserB]

Originally posted by jwslam
Wondering how much time people spend working out their personal finances on a month to month budgeting...

I literally don't budget for anything and maybe I should start?

I'm the same way. I recently found three years of unopened VISA bills as well, along with bank statements

[muse017]

Im using an app called MINT and it helps you tracking every financial transactions.Not actual budgeting but it helps to figure out spending habbits and such

[Manhattan]

Few hours a month is an absolute must IMO. At the very least you should be tracking your discretionary spending (vacations, toys, etc). Really helps to know what you can and cannot afford.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

I know how much I make and I know my savings targets and the rest has to cover my bills and anything else. I'm a single guy and I don't make tons of money but I've never had a problem with debt or had to be bailed out thankfully. Maybe an hour a month max for me to go over my finances and adjust anything accordingly.

Now if only my mortgage was paid off.

[Xtrema]

I do once a year usually before RRSP deadline, basically forecasting for major projects like renos and vacation and such and how to fund them.

For the last 2 years, I have also start preparing "worst case scenario" budgets with economy the way it is.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
I have like ~3400$ in lump sum insurance payments coming up this month too... *sigh*

My home insurance, auto insurance, and property tax are all lump sum end of June. June stinks.

[A790]

A few hours per month is all that I need. MINT makes it easy to validate expenses/etc. are falling with budgeted amounts.

Whenever possible, all expenses go on the same CC. This makes it easier to track. Also, cashback is tight.

[RealJimmyJames]

I used to do some pretty careful budgeting, couple of hours a month. These days, I work more on cashflow. I pay all my bills monthly, and I have a small number of automatic withdrawals that go elsewhere for savings. If my chequing account drops below zero, I know I need to spend less next month. Bank gives me free overdraft, so no cost for that. I find my spending is pretty stable, so it hasn't been an issue.

[flipstah]

Just because you spend time planning, doesn't really mean execution is on point...

Stay disciplined!

[danno]

i don't do any, my wife does it. if i've spent to much she will tell me. we have never been in debt more than a car and house. we had no car payments for about a year and were spending money like crazy but never went into debt. the most we talk about is are tax free savings accountant maybe 15 min a month.

we use credit card for everything so she can track everything easily and get points. i find you get in a routine and just know what you can and can't do, make savings a direct deposit so you don't have to see the money leave.

[carson blocks]

Originally posted by jwslam
Wondering how much time people spend working out their personal finances on a month to month budgeting...

I literally don't budget for anything and maybe I should start?

I did a budget once, decided how much to pay myself to live reasonably, and don't intend on redoing it until something major changes. I don't have a set amount for every little thing, but know what it costs to live. I like budgets as a tool for determining where your money leaks are, and how much you need or should spend, but think they fall apart when you get down to the level of budgeting set amounts for everything like clothing, gifts etc like the TV shows do. Life is far too variable for that in my opinion. Live like you make 1/2-3/4 what you do, keep some in the bank for the life's variability. When you live close enough to the limit that you have to start budgeting every little expense, you're living beyond your means IMO.

Originally posted by CompletelyNumb
I never used to do personal budgets. I was debt free, 6 figure income, money in the bank.

Then the oil crash happened. I haven't done anything in oil in over a year. My income has dropped over 80%. I have debt. I can't afford things.

I was always scared of a crash, so I set my spending to what I would make as a worst case scenario and only paid myself that. I pulled a little extra now and then but was pretty good about keeping to my set income. Now, I'm in the same boat as you, haven't worked in a while, but keep paying myself my same monthly wage from the savings I put away in the good times so my lifestyle hasn't changed a bit, other than I spend less time wearing pants now. It's not really a true budget, but kept me honest during the boom times, and is the only reason I'm not going crazy during the bust.

[nissanK]

My wife and I got on the Total Money Makeover plan and it's been working out great for us these last 6 years.

https://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-M.../dp/159555078X

Our first budget took over 2 hours in one night and we couldn't see where the numbers were always wrong. Now it only takes 15-20 every payday to plan out the next 2 weeks of food, gas utilities etc.

We do the envelope system so we know exactly how much is left for each item. Plus we can determine if we under spent in one area (money left over) or didn't budget enough and we make the changes accordingly the next pay period.

[schocker]

I was using YNAB for a bit but it got pretty cumbersome as I liked to input expenses as they happened instead of importing credit card/bank statements. Now I just gauge my spending based on my CC bill and keep it below a certain amount. Also stopped buying dumb/unnecessary stuff (Try to only buy quality of life improvements or house items) so that helped since work has been slow.

[killramos]

If any of you are RBC clients I find their online banking MyFinance tracker quite useful for all this.

They have the ability to live link accounts with different institutions or you can manually setup accounts and update them as you feel.

It goes across all of your transactions and auto classifies them ( I spend maybe 10 minutes a month correcting the transaction categories ). With that I have a comprehensive record of my spending on pretty much anything going back years. This is useful if you regularly use multiple credit cards as well as debit transactions.

You can set up budgets within the program and see if you are actually meeting them. You can input average income as well and it will show you with your budgets if you are actually solvent. It also does Net Worth analysis to see if you are really whittling down the debt and moving forward with your financial picture in reality. If you are saving for a goal you can set that up in the program and it will help you budget how you can meet that target etc.

Basically i just spend a few minutes going through some of the aspects of that program when i pay my CC bill every month to see if I am where I want to be or if i need to change a habit.

[Perfect Dark]

When I first moved out on my own after my separation I used Mint to get my finances sorted. It really helped me to figure out what I was doing with my money as I was in new territory when it came to groceries, kids clothes, that kind of thing. I backed off of it after a year or so as things went into cruise control and I had a good grasp of my finances.

Now I'm living in sin with my girlfriend and we're back to using Mint to get us started with having two incomes and way more disposable income. I want to make sure it's not getting frivolously spent (to a degree haha). It took awhile to get all of the budgets set up and whatnot but now it's maybe an hour or two cumulatively each week to make sure everything is tracking properly.

[max_boost]

i keep it simple and have a rough estimate in my head.

it's the gf i have to keep in check. if she exceeds a certain amount on the c/c a month, i tell her to chill out the next haha

[jwslam]

Originally posted by killramos
If any of you are RBC clients I find their online banking MyFinance tracker quite useful for all this.

They have the ability to live link accounts with different institutions or you can manually setup accounts and update them as you feel.

It goes across all of your transactions and auto classifies them ( I spend maybe 10 minutes a month correcting the transaction categories ). With that I have a comprehensive record of my spending on pretty much anything going back years. This is useful if you regularly use multiple credit cards as well as debit transactions.

You can set up budgets within the program and see if you are actually meeting them. You can input average income as well and it will show you with your budgets if you are actually solvent. It also does Net Worth analysis to see if you are really whittling down the debt and moving forward with your financial picture in reality. If you are saving for a goal you can set that up in the program and it will help you budget how you can meet that target etc.

Basically i just spend a few minutes going through some of the aspects of that program when i pay my CC bill every month to see if I am where I want to be or if i need to change a habit.

Interesting. I'm currently being paid to promote the TD version called MySpend