How Budgeting Looks At Our House

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This is a re-post from a few years ago, but I know we’re all working to reign in things with the new year beginning! I’m still reeling from the Christmas holidays (anyone else still playing catch up?) but am so ready to start working on more budgeting posts this year – be watching as we get started.

After sharing how thankful I am that we budget for car expenses, I received numerous requests for more information on exactly how we handle budgeting around here, so here’s a quick overview of our monthly budget planning. We by no means have it all figured out, but this is what’s worked for us for over fifteen years . . . maybe it will help you too.

We started years ago using the Financial Peace envelope system, however, at least for our family, keeping up with cash for every single item was just difficult to manage. So, here’s how we’ve tweaked it to work for us:

Every two weeks (on Friday), we withdraw cash for groceries, dining out, and entertainment
Once a month, we have an automatic withdrawal taken out of our checking account and deposited into savings for other specific items (keep reading)
When we need one of those specific items, we transfer money back into checking from savings to cover those expenses.

So, what kind of things do we budget for beyond food? Here’s an idea . . .

Kids sports and extracurricular activities
Vacations
Christmas gifts (we start saving every January)
Birthday gifts
Car expenses
Car replacement
Life insurance
Home Owners Association dues
Real Estate Taxes
Yard Maintenance
Furniture Replacement (I don’t think my husband puts much in this one, but I forced him to add it in the spreadsheet) 😉
Clothing
Dry Cleaning
Hair Care
School Supplies
College Fund
“Blow” money

Then, within our monthly budget we have a separate tab (we use Excel) that includes our savings account totals. I just looked at it this morning and the one that we currently are using has been around since 2007 ~ it was interesting that we now have ten times what we started with in that little savings account, and I can’t tell you just how much freedom comes with that!

If you’re new to budgeting, here are several free budget spreadsheets you can use to get you started (I’m still working on how to make mine accessible online, so be watching for it in the next few weeks!)

I’d love to know how your family handles monthly budget expenses, and what other suggestions you have. Leave a comment to share!

New to budgeting and don’t know where to begin? Here are a few posts to you get started: