The Budget Binder!

The Wiebe Family Budget Binder

As promised in a previous post. Here is a run down of our simple Budget Binder. Being organized in our finances has helped us in the last few months to realize that what we thought we spent our money on.... to what we actually spend our money on is quite different. Before we jump into the particulars I want to make the most important note out of all of this......


 ***************IMPORTANT NOTE**************************
Budgets don't work unless BOTH people in the relationship are involved. Seriously. If you don't both keep receipts, keep track of spending, and stay on the same page with what the goals are for your household, it just falls apart. Either one person gets exhausted with the up keep or one person spends money you didn't have or whatever just, people, PLEASE! Do your budget together. It is only an hour or so every couple weeks. THIS IS SO IMPORTANT! And you can count it as quality time?! Ok, it might be lame quality time; but necessary!

*DISCLAIMER*
 I am not saying I am the most financially savvy person in the world and that if you follow these steps you'll be a millionaire. I have debt, the same as most people, and to be quite honest (and anyone who knows me will attest to this) I am terrible at math. However, we do our best to stay on top of the bills and budgeting. And so, our budget binder is very simple!


So here are the steps of how we budget and the things that are in our Budget Binder:

1. THE BILL CALENDAR

At the beginning of every month I fill in and print out our Bill Calendar. I use a simple calendar from Microsoft Publisher, and accent it however I feel suits the month. What goes on the calendar?

I put every single payment that will need to come out. Including a rough budget for groceries. I mark our paydays, and when our Child Tax Credits come in. (The link to find out what day you get paid is HERE ) I also mark any special occasions... Like Birthdays and Anniversaries, or Planned Long Distance Travel.

A Mock-up of September's Calendar.

The point of this calendar is an easy access to knowing what bills need to get paid from what paycheck. Payday morning, I sit down with the calendar and pay what bills need to be paid. I make sure there is enough money left in the account to cover automatic withdrawals, and a reasonable "float" for miscellaneous purchases, and gas. Then with what's left over- if there is any left over... sometimes there is not- I make payments towards our debt.
                   
 Interjecting here---> It is important to know what your main financial goal is. Ours right now is paying off our debt. A couple years ago, our main goal was saving for a house. In 10 years I'm sure our goals will be more focused on investing for retirement... It doesn't matter what you put your extra money to. the most important thing is to HAVE A GOAL! It makes deciding what to do with your money so much easier and tends to keep you from wasting your money on frivolous things *cough cough* takeout *cough cough*

2. RECORDING YOUR ACTUAL BUDGET:

After paying what bills need to be paid I then print off the last two weeks of transactions from my online bank account. (Thankfully, mine has that option.)

I review the itemized list and assign each transaction to a group in my Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Budget. Then I put the paper copy of the two weeks into the co-ordinating monthly tab in my binder.

 I chose a simple family budget spreadsheet that adds your totals up and gives you a month by month trend report at the end of each line. It also keeps a YTD total at the bottom of each column (month) If Spreadsheets intimidate you... (like they did me) I suggest taking a tutorial of Microsoft Excel. That's what I did. It makes things A LOT easier to understand. Remember.... I am TERRIBLE at math. If you still feel nervous about a spreadsheet then you could just keep a total of your categories on paper. It was just too much work for me.

I would link a copy of my spreadsheet but not only am I terrible at math... I'm not that great with computers either! Hahaha. Seriously though, take a little tutorial online either through Miscrosoft Excel (what I did) or I'm sure you could YouTube it!

When itemizing your two weeks of spending/deposits I want to note that KEEPING YOUR RECEIPTS really helps! I have a plastic sleeve in my Budget Binder that I can throw receipts into so that every two weeks when I itemize my actual spent budget I know what was spent on what. Then I just throw out all the receipts to start the next two weeks (Unless, of course, there's something worth keeping for Taxes)

The inside of my binder. Each month has the finished itemized list of credits/debits
and there is a tab for Receipts and the Bill Calendar at the end.

 

The whole point of keeping a budget is to REVIEW IT! After keeping a couple months sit down and look over where you're over spending, and where you might be able to cut to work faster towards your goal!

This is how we budget at the Wiebe Household. It's not very fancy... or complicated. But it works for us. How do you keep a budget?

Before you sit.... Check yourself!

I recently made Adam a list of things to do before he can watch a TV show. I've been finding he watches too much TV and I hate the constant bartering. So I made up a little list using Microsoft Publisher.
( I LOVE PUBLISHER)

I put the picture in a plastic sleeve so he can use a dry erase marker to mark the things he's done.

The best thing about this is that usually he gets busy doing other things and having fun doing them that he forgets that he wanted to watch TV anyway!

Anyway, I realized that I needed a similar list too... because I spend an awful lot of time on the computer (Says the woman writing a blog post... touche) So here is a list I made for myself and I plan on hanging it up right beside my computer to remind myself to do other things first, as well!

I may just have to frame this and hang it up. It would be more appealing to the eye.

It's so hard sometimes to be accountable to yourself when you're a stay at home mom. This is my struggle, and I find that visual aids help me the most. Do they help you?

4 Things Anyone Can Do To Tackle Debt

Since we purchased our home a year ago, our financial goals have shifted from saving for a house (duh) to paying off the debt we've accumulated. I'd like to say it's all debt from smart purchases but let's be honest... when we got married we were young... impulsive.... ..... yea ok, we were just down right stupid with our money management  spending.

So our goals have shifted. We are now tackling our debt until it is ALL PAID OFF!

Here's 4 things we've done or are doing to make that happen.

1. USE A BUDGET BINDER

It's a rather simple, and not new in any way idea. You can't tackle your debt if you don't have control of your spending habits. Keeping track of our budget on a spreadsheet has really helped us track our spending trends and realize just how much money we really blow on "Groceries" and other things. (It's definitely been more than I thought) Now we're able to target and plan for how we can improve spending habits in a more specific manner.

 However writing down a budget takes time. It also takes a lot of work and BOTH people in the relationship need to be involved or it gets to be too much for one or the other. I'll post about how to make your own Budget Binder- Wiebe Style- at future date.



2. PAY OFF THE CREDIT CARDS. EVERY PAYCHECK.

Generally speaking, my hubby and I don't like to use our credit cards (too easy to blow money on nothing).We tend to save cash for things we want to purchase. That way we know it's really something we wanted if we actually manage to save up the amount and buy it. Sometimes, however things get put on the card and I always make sure they either get paid off the day we use the card, or at the next pay day. ** If your credit cards are maxed out then make sure you pay more than the minimum payment every month until they're payed off completely and THEN PAY OFF THE CREDIT CARDS. EVERY PAYCHECK.

3. MAKE A "MANDATORY" MINIMUM PAYMENT TO YOUR CREDIT LINE

Our credit line is where our biggest debt (other than the house) is. It is also not necessary for us to pay a minimum monthly payment... which has come in handy over the years when we literally had NO MONEY to put towards the credit line. However handy that flexibility has been, it has also made us quite lax in paying anything towards our primary amount. So we figured if we pay back $167 minimum monthly we'd be able to pay off $2000 per year! We pay tithing first, bills second, then at the very minimum $167 to our Credit Line, if not more.

4. NEGOTIATE FOR BETTER RATES

This really is as simple as it sounds! We went in to our bank today and got 2.5% knocked off my husbands interest rate for his credit line. I kid you not! Simply because we asked (and qualified for it). Really, the bank works for us! We give them a TONNE of money yearly in interest alone. They want to keep us around- Or that's the attitude I went in there with anyway. I haven't tried this for our Credit Cards yet but I'm definitely going to now!

I know a post about money can be boring and even depressing... but I was so impressed at how easy it was for us to get a better interest rate I just had to share. So there it is...Anybody else out there have a similar goal?