I honestly think that even though money isn’t everything… money impacts almost every aspect of our everyday lives and its important to respect that. Realistically you can’t have all of “the pretty” without dealing with what goes on behinds the scenes. I love fashion, decor, art and makeup. But I’m not famous, nor am I rich. I’m not a fashion blogger with sponsors galore… So I’m trying to spend wisely so I can have pretty things without going broke.
See a little more about my views on money in my interview with The Everygirl, here.
2009
(I started these budget recap posts mid 2009)
2010
2011
2012
2013
*NOTE: Montly budget breakdowns are for shopping/food/gas only, or expense that I can control fully on a monthly basis. I’m not including fixed expenses (mortgage, utilities, medical bills) because they’re fixed and honestly pretty boring to talk about. My TOTAL spending is not reflected in this budget *
I just recently found your blog and I think it’s great that you break down your budget! I used to write down every single little thing I spend for about 3 months and it got quite tedious and my husband was annoyed with me asking him for receipts all the time LOL. I love how you give yourself a realistic budget and try to stick to it. Any tips on starting off? I just started a blog of my own, so maybe it’s something I could incoporate to help me stay on track.
First thing to do before you start a budget is to record what you spend for at least a month. Then break everything down into spending categories and from those numbers set a goal per category! (If you keep track for more than 2 months just average everything out)
My budget breakdowns are from Mint.com but you could also use a spreadsheet (this is a good one that I always recommend) To do a quick budget on the fly, try LearnVest’s Budget calculator.
BTW Congrats on the start of your new blog! Good luck with your budgeting!
Thanks so much! I’m going to give that spreadsheet a try and I’ll look into the website you use. I think I will need to be able to enter things right away or else I will end up doing it right before going to bed and who wants to have money (or lack there of) on their minds right before going to sleep!
Thanks for the encouragement
I would love any feedback on my blog if you have the time – I just started it about a week ago LOL.
Take Care!
Hello, How do I get in touch with you? There is no email or contact info listed .. please advise .. thanks .. Mary. Please contact me maryregency at gmail dot com
I like that bag.
Elle
I just came across your website from ExtraPetite. I love all the posts I have read so far. They are super helpful for a 20 something bay area resident trying to save some money. The monthly budget recaps are especially helpful. I am forcing myself to create a budget for 2013 using your categories as a guide. I noticed for the Dec 2012 total budgeted amount it was $550 but when I added up all the various categories I arrived at $700. Is it excluding something?
Thanks!
Melinda
Ah yes! Sorry that this was confusing. I have a note under the graph: “Food & Dining” = Eating Out + Groceries. I wanted to watch my Groceries category closely since I normally don’t eat out too much, and I didn’t want my total food spending (eating out + groceries) over a certain amount. So you can see here that I did in fact end up eating out TOO much in December. If you add all of the categories up together, but exclude Groceries, you will end up at $550. I guess the Mint.com software took this into account.
Hopefully that clears things up
Thanks for reading!!