(Photo by me)
In preparing for my New Year’s resolution of watching how I spend, I’ve put together a budget. I thought I would share my process with you, so that I can get feedback and so that maybe you can benefit from seeing how I’m working on this.
The first step is to figure out how much money is available and what time period you are budgeting for. Since I’m in grad school, I’m planning a budget for the Spring semester, which is January through May, five months. (Technically the semester ends in April, but I won’t get my next loan til mid-May, so I figure budgeting for that month too is safer). During this semester, I will have one $4000 student loan. I will also have a bi-weekly paycheck of $400, which adds about another $4000 for the semester. Thus, for this five month period, I have $8000 to work with.
Next, you need to figure out you monthly re-curring expenses. Most of these will be necessities, such as rent, groceries, prescriptions and transportation. Others aren’t necessities, but still happen once a month. For me, these include gym membership, Netflix subscription and cell phone bill.
Here’s how this part of my budget breaks down:
- Rent: $450
- Utilities: $45
- Groceries: $400
- Gas: $25
- Netflix: $18
- World Vision: $35
- YMCA: $14
- Cell Phone: $15
- Busch Gardens: $6 (Credit)
- Monthly Prescription: $20
- Toiletries: $20
Total per month: $1048
Total for semester : $5240
It’s also important to consider non-recurring expenses at this point, such as car maintenance, textbooks, and tuition.
After this (and paying off my credit card balance) I end up with about $2260 to spend on non-necessities. That allows up to $452 per month for non-necessities, but my goal will be to only spend $400 per month. I’m allowing some flexibility, but I’d prefer to not be broke at the end of next semester.
For this part of my budget, I’m mostly going to track what I spend in each category and make sure I don’t go over my amount each month. My categories for this section include:
- Clothes
- Accessories
- Fabric/Yarn
- Gifts
- Household
- Going out to eat
- Books/Magazines
- Personal Grooming (Haircuts, manicure)
- Cosmetics
- Entertainment
As I track my expenses every month, I will probably make some adjustments, but this gives me a good framework to start with, and also helps me to be aware of what I have available. Now, I’m off to make a spreadsheet. I’ll share more details of that soon.
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