Keeping a budget

I've never in my life kept a budget until the last few months. Now we have a budget that we've been adhering to. I'm loving knowing exactly where our money goes, and ensuring that it's allocated appropriately. I keep track of our budget and actual spending on this worksheet, which I've customized to match our needs. Here are the categories that we've assigned;

-Housing
-Electric
-Water/ sewer
-Internet
-Cell phones
-Food- I use this for groceries and toiletry items
-Entertainment
-Car repairs/ maintenance
-Medical
-Car insurance
-Household
-Allowance (yes, we each get an allowance, and make all of our personal purchases (including clothes, books, gadgets etc.) out of this, therefore we do not just buy things at whim)
-Savings
-Giving (to church and individuals)
-Gas
-Haircuts
-Miscellaneous (this includes any dry cleaning, gifts, travel etc)

(These are just the categories that work for us, for people with a car payment they would need a category for that. Some people choose to have a clothing category, but we just buy that out of our personal allowance. Having cable or home phone service could add additional categories. Some choose to include a travel budget to set aside money for trips. Or a gifts budget for holidays, birthdays etc.)

We pay for most of our bills via check, and almost all other expenses we pay for in cash. When we used to use a debit card, I found that it was easy to spend more than I wanted at the store by just throwing extra things in the basket and swiping away, knowing that we had the money in our account. Now that I only have a certain amount of cash set aside for each expense each month I'm a good deal more thoughtful about every purchase that I make.

Following the budget and using cash have helped us to be more aware of the money that we spend, and to prioritize and make choices based on our values. This definitely works for me!

This post is being linked to Works for me Wednesdays at We Are That Family.

Shannon