The Six Letter Word
Budget.
Yes, the evil 6 letter word! lol
I have a budget of sorts and have had for a few years now. It tracks inflow and outflow for “fixed” things like spouse’s salary and recurring things like the electric bill. It works okay — I haven’t been late paying anything or bounced anything.
But it has TOO MUCH flexibility. Flexibility is good but mine has so much that money can just slip through my fingers.
So I have been racheting down. Using a list of categories one of my friends gave me who is a budget guru (thanks L!) and tweaking it so it reflects our family instead of hers , I have been trying to figure out how much we need to budget for various things. Some like groceries and gasoline I found easy since I have been tracking these things for a long time, but some like clothing and gifts given I found really hard to pin down a number.
Apparently I say tweak a lot.
Which is okay (not being able to pin down a number). I have decided the goal is to have the rock solid budget in place by January 2008. That gives me time to track more. That does not mean that I will not be tightening the budget in the meantime. What it means though is that I will still have some flexibility if I learn I have no idea what I am doing. 
And enter piles of things into excel and play with them there. I love excel.
I’ve decided to use the “You Need A Budget” software to do everything. But I have to… get this… BUDGET for buying it. Budgeting to buy budget software! I love it :).
~J
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July 15th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
i’ve been reading your blog. great stuff!!! can you post and share your list of budgeting categories you mention in your “the six letter word” post??? thanks so much
July 15th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
sure I shall write a new post for them.
thanks for reading!