another budget update

After struggling for many months to get a better handle on our spending, I finally realized what every good teacher should know: I'm a visual learner. Even though I'm pretty tech-savvy and like to use the computer, budget spreadsheets weren't quite working for me. I used a document from Words of Williams to estimate our monthly income and designate amounts for bills, tithing, food, etc. But it wasn't working the way I wanted.

I thought back to my single days and how carefully I tracked my spending. What was different then? I wondered. Then it hit me: I wrote my expenses down by hand and had things separated into spending columns. That worked.Why not try it again?

So, I found an old binder, bought some notebook paper, and sorted out our spending into 8 basic categories: Housing, giving, savings, utilities, food & supplies, gifts, cars, and fun.

On the first day of February, we'd both just gotten paid, so I started fresh and wrote down amounts from our paychecks into each category. Since then I've been recording every thing we spend and putting it on the appropriate page (category).

I'm pretty stoked about this new method. Hope it sticks for the long term!