First, let’s review what the 3 types of budgets are. The 3 types of budgets are House, Investment, and Personal. We are going to focus on the House budget for this article. The best advice I can give you when starting out is to be completely honest. Hiding some expenses can really hurt you in the long run. Any recurring expense needs to be documented and tracked. The goal is to slowly eliminate any extraneous expenses. Then as bills drop off, put that money into your unto your Investment budget. Let’s take a look at my tracker.
The top portion of the budget tracker is from my main budget account. Every month I direct deposit $2500 into my Wells Fargo Checking account. From there I track each my of bills ensuring that the total amount is under $2500. On the left, I have the estimated amount of each bill. On the right, I have all the actual amounts paid. It is important to track the paid amounts because often companies will try to take advantage of you. The bills include power, water, trash & sewer, lawn maintenance, insurance, and cellphones.
As I paid down bills such as car payments and credit cards, I still kept the $2500 coming into the account. With this remaining money, I started to account for in my investment budget. The light blue numbers on the left are all going into investments on the first of the month. So just starting the month, I am already investing $1400. That is a great feeling.
Finally, the bottom portion of the budget is miscellaneous items. Every month I send $270 to my Discover money back debit card. I pay these bills automatically from that card. At the end of the month, I receive 1% of the money spent. It is deposited right into my high savings account. It ends up being about $2.50 a month. It is not a lot but eventually, I would like to transfer more bills into this scheme. If I can receive $10 back a month, that would be huge.
Remember, be as detailed as possible. Always account for extra expenses and investments. Investments are just as important as bills. Pay yourself first and you will be successful.
Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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