Budgeting

[Pumpkin]

Do you use a budget? If so, is it a strict budget, or just a general guideline?

I have made a budget for the year for sharky and I and hopefully I get a job eventually at which point I will rearrange it. But for now, I made us a decent budget where I overestimated on all of our expenses to be on the safe side and we should be able to save a little bit of money every month :D

[Parker]

I am AWFUL at this and I am always poor. I am forced to change that right now but things should be good soon as I have some cool expensive stuff to sell.

[Shauna]

I don't really have to budget all that much, due to not owning a house, and I just pay digs money to my Dad. I will have to start planning a little bit more, when I start doing my driving lessons again this month, but there's still not going to be a huge amount of budgeting going on. Just wanna make sure I can still put some money aside for my savings!

[Sephex]

Actually, I am in really bad shape financially. I pay money to my ex-wife as part of our divorce settlement, among other bills... I just had no choice but to make you pay for lunch the other day. I'm really sorry.

[Shorty]

I use a pretty loose system. I budget out my bills, savings, gas, food, pet stuff, and a little bit of spending money usually for 3-6 months in advance depending on how productive/lazy I feel when I am doing it.

I don't nickel and dime everything or account for every penny spent. I've tried and I always smurf it up and it just stresses me out.

[escobert]

I'm pretty loose. I just pay bills out of my check when I get it and spend the rest. I don't save. I know that's not good but, I don't trust banks and if I do save it will be for buying gold. and I guess I kinda have been "saving" I've been stocking up on ammo, store-able foods and various other survival thingy. Oh and books. I've probably bought too many books lately.

[noxious.sunshine]

I has no money.

ergo I has no budget .

BAM.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

Oh god no. I should, but I don't. Ergo I am in horrible financial shape. I just spend my money willy nilly only ensuring I have enough money left over to pay bills.

[Pike]

I didn't for many, many years but now I do thanks to a great program called "You Need a Budget" which I highly recommend by the way. Now I have no idea how I could live without a budget - it saves me a ton of money and it's nice to know exactly where I'm at, financially.

Finding a good budget program and/or learning a routine is hard work - I know this from experience - but it's totally worth it and I recommend it to everyone. I might finally be moving back out of my dad's basement this year!

[Shlup]

BJ and I set up a budget to track our finances for about a year. After that we felt we had enough of a flow to not need to do all the math anymore.

Though it's a shame that the nifty spreadsheet I made isn't in use anymore. It's rainbow with pie charts!

[Minami]

I'm really bad at budgeting though i always make sure i have enough to pay my bills

[Shiny]

There's this nifty little software where you can track your own finances via computer or mobile phone called, You Need a Budget (http://www.youneedabudget.com/). Pretty uncreative name though.

[Night Fury]

We're lucky over here to both get paid weekly, so our budget runs week to week and we have a joint savings account so stuff goes in there.

We basically try not to splurge as we're saving for our Europe trip next year. We both always have money for nice things though :)

[Ayen]

Live with my folks who make enough to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads, mom makes enough to spoil herself on occasion or help out my brother when he needs it. Dad has always been real choosy with money and wouldn't pay anything extra nor did he like it when you did if there was no justifiable reason for it. I can be just as bad when it comes to some things. We wouldn't even have digital TV if my dad had a choice in the matter.

[Psychotic]

I've done hundreds of the damn things as part of my job. From a personal perspective, yeah, I can't not budget, it's now too deeply ingrained in me. I've seen what can happen if you don't budget too many times not to.

Random rant time, I think it's ridiculous that there's a lack of financial education in schools. Maybe it's different in other countries but we sure as smurf don't do it here and I think just one lesson on budgeting would make a huge difference. Then again that might put me out of a job, so...! :p

[Jess]

I budget my money mentally. I don't write anything down or work off a spreadsheet, but it works well for me. All my bills are set up to be taken almost straight after I get paid, so whatever I'm left with is mine, so it's not difficult to budget. I live to my means and if I can't afford something, I will simply go without or save for it. I have no debts and no credit cards and that's how I like it.

[Mirage]

I impose some spending limits on myself, but it's not really a budget.

[fire_of_avalon]

Yeah, no, I clearly need to visit Psy and lern 2 finance. I'm not in trouble or anything, I just don't have any emergency money and my whole life is basically one big emergency soooooooooo.

[Pike]

All of these people in here with no budgets :whimper: I want to teach all of you guys how to budget. Psy's probably 10 million times better at it, though, so have him teach you instead.

BUT if any of you get YNAB and need help with it let me know. Also let me know if you want a referral link that gets you $6 off the full program.

[Mirage]

I just transfer like 800 bucks to my savings account and use the rest randomly without giving it much thought. I stop whenever my debit card says stop. Usually in a large line at the grocery store.

[Pumpkin]

I envy the people with money.

[Jiro]

I am pretty okay at budgeting. I can make money work for me.

This is all great in theory but when I have zero income and many expenses, it becomes difficult. I am not a wizard.