Smart Saving and Investing

It’s Labor Day Weekend 2007.

If you have a budget that guides you on a month-to-month basis or just a general overview of what’s coming in and what’s going out you can also do “mini-budgets”.

Mini-Budgets are budgets for times like Labor Day where you have the possibility of over spending. A lot of folks have a 3-day weekend and possible cookouts, parties, football games, etc.

These are the times where you can end up spending more than you can or should. So a good way to keep it under control is to make a list of what you’re doing over the 3-day weekend and how that will affect the money you spend.

For great inspiration on being frugal check these folks out:

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself while you make a list of what you’re doing and what you’re spending this weekend:

1. Where are you driving to and how far?

Spend a few moments finding the closest gas station that offers a bit less expensvive gas for your drive?

2. How much food will you need?

Spend a few moments clipping coupons. If you don’t like doing that just clip a few that will make a minor or major impact.

3. How much cash do you have?

Do you have a money jar sitting around that you put loose change in during the week, month, etc.? If so, grab that to use for buying extra stuff for the Labor Day holiday weekend outings.

4. What debt can you avoid?

You know what will make you slide into debt. Be conscious of that and ask, with every amount of money you spend this weekend will it make you slide into a debt hole you might already be in.

5. What do you want for your future?

Think about the goals you have for the future. What you do with your money this weekend can affect your goals for the future. I’m not talking about depriving yourself of fun now and not doing anything now, I’m promoting balance. You need to satisfy your “I want it now!!” needs and still preserve your future goals, wants and needs.

If you have a partner make sure you think of and do these tasks together. If you’re single make sure you sit down with your dog or cat and explain to them what you want to accomplish. Stuffed animals or dolls work too.

Have a great weekend!!

written by Bill Stevens

Well here we are at the final segment of How to Create a Budget. This final part includes parting words and a audio visual review of some of the spreadsheets you can find and online personal finance websites you can use to track your finances.

There are so many different kinds of budgets out there that one solution doesn’t cover it all. I’m sure some folks reading this series are throwing their sweaty nightcaps in the air from the simple examples I’m using because I might have excluded some scenarios. But this series is to get folks to start budgeting and thinking about what they earn and what they spend.

Some folks make a certain amount of money every month and some it varies every month. Some folks make the majority of their income in a few months and have to budget for slower months until the time comes again when their income is plentiful. So again, sit down and look at a whole year and how that looks according to your income and all the different expenses you have during the year.

Another side of budgeting is control and emotion. It takes control to sit down and create a budget and review it weekly, monthly, every other month, etc. Adjusting as you go. Realizing you’re spending too much, not saving enough or not investing enough. I prefer Sunday evenings to review how my financial life is going. I review my checking account, online savings account, my employer’s retirement account, and my Roth IRA.

During tax season then, I’ll review everything financial a bit more and make sure the rest of the year goes the way I want it to and look at any surprises that might happen that I can control. Of course, there will always be unplanned surprises.

I make as many automatic bill payments as I can and automatic deposits in my online savings account and automatic deposits to my brokerage account where shares of my mutual funds are purchased on a monthly basis automatically. Setting up your accounts to perform their activities automatically allows you to make sure your financial activities get done. This allows you to login to websites and review what’s going on with your finances.

The emotion of budgeting can be hard. Some of you know it won’t look good and ignore it because you know it’s bad news or maybe one spouse doesn’t want to look at because of the bad news and feelings it brings on. Couples can struggle with this because it creates tension, arguments, etc.

I will say, there is something about working through painful situations in life together with your partner that makes you a better couple. I know that sounds cliche-ish but it can be very true. With persistence, patience and resolution comes understanding and the strengthened awareness of each other’s needs, wants and concerns about your financial life.

So that’s it for this series. Get going on budgeting and setting up your financial life as automatic as possible so it doesn’t become a drain on you. Below are some spreadsheet templates and newer personal finance websites to check out and review to see if they fit your needs.

Have a great day!!

Microsoft Online Templates

Buxfer - Track Your Money. Effortlessly.

BudgetTracker, Inc.

BudgetPulse - Simple Online Money Tracking and Budgeting

NetworthIQ - Track, share and compare Net Worth

expensr - Where did all my money go?

iOWEYOU - online calculator for expense sharing

Pear Budget - Easy budgeting for everyone.

Foonance - expense tracking

billster.net - organize your personal and shared expenses

billQ - The easiest way to keep track of your bills

Walletproof - Start budgeting today

Geezeo - Educated Financial Decisions

moneytrackin’ - online accounting for real people

Here’s a 12 minute video on the spreadsheets and websites mentioned above:

[video http://www.smartsavinginvesting.com/video/BudgetTools.avi]

written by Bill Stevens

Part 3 - Variable Expenses

Hi gang. So up to this point we’ve talked about our income, fixed expenses and non-fixed expenses or non-fixed fixed expenses, stuff we have to pay eventually but not every month.

In this post we’ll be talking about variable expenses. These are the expenses in our lives that we can most likely control and fudge around so we don’t break the bank.

They include items like:

1. Groceries - Hot Tamales Candy (awesome core nutrient!!), oat meal, bread, meats, fruits and veggies
2. Clothing - pants, shirts, socks, etc.
3. Personal Hygeine - hair do, manicures, pedicures
4. Pet Hygeine - hair do, manicures, pedicures, you know, the essentials.
5. Socializing - eating out, dancing, drag races, ballet, ultimate fighting, symphony, etc.
6. Home - cleaning, mirrors, carpet, picture frames, plants, etc.
7. Gas for the car(s)

These types of expenses can really grow quickly because you have a choice. You have a choice on how many groceries to buy, how much clothing to buy, hair do, manicures, pedicures, going out all the time, buying stuff for your home, cutting back on driving everywhere all the time and using up gas galore, etc. etc.

So that’s it for the three different types of expenses - fixed, non-fixed (kind of) and variable expenses. Again, I recommend firing up a spreadsheet program first such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc or Google Docs & Spreadsheets to get going. If you’re just starting out, then this is a quick way to answer the never-ending question, “Where’s all my money going?”

If you need help with any of these programs drop me a comment or email (billstevens2000@gmail.com) and I can certainly create a video of how to use some of these programs.

If you feel like delving into some Windows programs that organize your whole financial life and make your bed for you, you can certainly try these two programs that always seem to go neck and neck with each other and they also have trial downloads:

• Quicken
• Microsoft Money

A Google Directory search will also provide you with a plethora of programs to check out if you’d like to do your own further investigation. Here’s another Google Directory search for Personal Finance Software for PDA. Of course we need to include Personal Finance Software for the MAC.

At least we don’t have to do it the old fashioned way using ledger paper, you know when we had to “walk through 10-feet of snow to get to school, with no shoes and we liked it.” I would imagine using ledger paper is a lost art so who knows maybe there’ll be a come back.

I’ll finish up this series on How to Create a Budget in Part 4 reviewing some of the up and coming online sites to track your moola online.

Here’s the updated super simple fictitious spreadsheet including variable expenses:

written by Bill Stevens

Part 2 - Non-Fixed Expenses

In How to Create a Budget - Part 1, I talked about using budgets as a guide, listing your income and writing down your fixed expenses like rent or your mortgage payment, utilities, savings, Roth IRA, etc. that occur every month.

I also discussed using spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org office suite to create your budget. I also mistakenly put this line in there “Here’s a list of spreadsheets to confuse the hell out of you but a lot of them mean well.” and I didn’t provide any spreadsheets. I’m saving those for Part 4.

What are non-fixed expenses? Non-fixed expenses are the items that you pay at various times through out the year. They are not the variable items we’ll talk about in Part 3 - Variable Expenses where you might have more control over variable items but you might not have any or very little control over non-fixed expenses.

They include:

1. Car repairs and on-going maintenance - changing oil, rotating tires, etc.
2. Medical expenses - Doctor visits, medicines, etc.
3. Birthday and Christmas gifts, etc.
4. Various taxes and insurance payments - car, moped, property, etc.
5. Fees - parking, transportation, dues, etc.

The list can go on and on but these are just some examples to think about when you’re creating your non-fixed (or should I call them non-fixed, fixed expenses) expenses.

Here’s the updated super simple fictitious spreadsheet including non-fixed expenses:

Well that’s it for this post. Pretty simple so far. If you have any questions or concerns let me know by way of a comment.

For now, I’ll break out that second box of Hot Tamales Candy I mentioned in Part 1, since working on budgets isn’t too much fun, there’s got to be some joy in the process besides the joy you’ll feel knowing what’s coming in ($$) and what’s going out (-$$). Have a great day!! DANG!! How do they make them so chewy!!

The problem is, I went to the dentist this afternoon for my every six months cleaning. You feel so good after you leave with that feeling your teeth have been cleaned of everything bad that you’ve eaten the previous six months and it just doesn’t matter anymore. And now this…candy. Arghhh.

written by Bill Stevens

Well folks here we go on How to Create a Budget - Part 1 of 4

Part 1 - Income and Fixed Expenses
Part 2 - Non-Fixed Expenses
Part 3 - Variable Expenses
Part 4 - The Spreadsheets, Mass Confusion and My Head’s Going to Explode

From my point of view, I keep a budget to keep track of what’s coming in and what’s going out. For a simple example, if you make $10.00 a month and spend $11.00 a month, you’re going to have budgeting problems. That’s why we budget.

Creating a budget and sticking to that budget is sometimes futile. The moment you make the perfect budget, something horrid happens:

1. There’s a gift to buy for someone in the family.
2. Your car needs brakes, etc.
3. Your spouse buys something new they can’t live without and doesn’t tell you about it for a month.
4. Your water heater breaks.
5. A big tree falls on your house.
6. You have a minor fender bender that’s your fault and your deductible is $500.00.
7. You win a free trip somewhere all expenses paid, but you end up spending your own money on the trip.
8. You buy two boxes of Hot Tamales Candy instead of one because they’re so darn chewy, delicious and…HOT!!
9. You spent $10.00 more on fireworks just so you can show-up your neighbor and think that all the kids in the neighborhood would think you’re cool.
10. Your hair looks horrible and you HAVE to get it fixed, etc., etc. Luckily, I’m 95% bald and don’t have to worry about this one.

So, if you’re so inclined, you can try and stick to a strict budget but I would bet to say that it will end up being more of a guide. Again, a budget has to answer the basic question of what’s coming and what’s going.

Ok, the first thing you want to do when creating a budget is sit down and list what income you have. For instance if you take home $1,000.00 and your spouse brings home $1,000.00, then that’s your income.

The second thing you want to do when creating a budget is sit down and list what fixed expenses you have to pay month-to-month. Yes, but what are expenses?

For instance, you have to pay the same amount of rent every month or a mortgage payment. You have the same amount of money you send to your online savings account and Roth IRA every month.

You want to pay the same amount of electricity and gas every month so you enroll in the budget-level payment plan for these utilities. That way you know exactly what they will be. You have the same car payment every month. You have the same Cable TV bill every month. You have the same student loan payment to make every month, etc., etc.

I recommend that you do this using spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel or the freely available OpenOffice.org office suite. Here’s a list of spreadsheets to confuse the hell out of you but a lot of them mean well. For this first part though, let’s fire up a blank spreadsheet and list what your income is and list your fixed expenses.

Next post we’ll go through the non-fixed and variable expenses that make everything feel like jelly. You know, like you can’t get a hold of it.

Here’s a super simple fictitious spreadsheet to start listing your income and expenses:

written by Bill Stevens