Budgeting for personal entertainment

[The Budget Man]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

The challenge of deciding how much we can afford to spend on entertainment is very difficult unless we have a simple division in our budget between the money we have already commited to bill paying and the money we have available for Day-To-Day living.

One of the incredible discoveries of Personality Budgeting was that there are only three places your money can go...


We can pay bills that we have committed to

We can save money for tomorrow
or

We can have money for Day-To-Day living

The banking triangle (copyright) shows this very simply



The exciting part of all this is that once we have separated out our bills and savings, everything else can be moved around at will.

All of a sudden we can see how much money we have available and we can decide if we want to spend it on entertainment, food etc.

Enjoy Your Money
The Budget Man

The Budgeting Workshop is a free 20 minute online workshop that will change your attitude to budgeting.

http://www.personalitybudgeting.com/pb_workshop_1.php

[naturalwoman]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

yes i put that in my budget as entertainment. it could be movies, dvd rental or bowling, but it's there.

[outlawsister1973]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I should be ashamed to admit that I don't budget at all. I pay the bills as they come in. I most certainly don't set a limit for entertainment or eating out....which is why I get myself into trouble. That will have to be my New Year's Resolution. We haven't been eating out as much or buying new things...(not so much because I don't want to and would if I had the money)...so that is kind of a good thing. Lol!

Spending really makes me happy. Unfortunately most of the spending goes for bills. Blech.

[tinapbeana]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

Spending really makes me happy. Unfortunately most of the spending goes for bills. Blech.

i was the same way for a long time, still am actually. what i realized, though, is that for me the part that makes me happy is the 'thrill of the hunt', so to speak.

i like finding deals. not just deals, but GREAT AMAZING deals. in my family, and now with some of our friends, these are the things we brag about when we get together. for instance: my christmas present to my dad was a 2 gig flash drive. normally 80, i got it for 24.99.

so, instead of just shopping just for the sake of shopping, i'll shop to see if i can beat my best deal. for instance, today, i bought 4 rolls of christmas wrapping paper 25 sq ft each for a quarter apiece. i bought it because it was a better deal than the last time i bought paper just before christmas: 2 rolls 50 sf each for a buck each. granted, next time i'm not likely to find it much cheaper than this, but i'll know that this is the price i should be looking to pay.

[The Budget Man]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I should be ashamed to admit that I don't budget at all. I pay the bills as they come in. I most certainly don't set a limit for entertainment or eating out....which is why I get myself into trouble. That will have to be my New Year's Resolution. We haven't been eating out as much or buying new things...(not so much because I don't want to and would if I had the money)...so that is kind of a good thing. Lol!

Spending really makes me happy. Unfortunately most of the spending goes for bills. Blech.

It's interesting that you say you don't have a budget. It's also interesting to hear you say that you should be ashamed.


Here's some amazing news for you... YOU DO HAVE A BUDGET... it's simply not the traditional written one. You proved it when you said that you have cut back on eating out so you can cover the bills.

If I had a dollar for every person who has told me that they don't budget, I'd be a multi millionaire.

The truth is that we all budget differently and that for too long we've felt inferior if we don't have an old style written budget.

By the way...

You are correct... most of your money goes on bills (about 70% on average). The interesting thing about bills is that they are highly predictable so if we can put a system (yes call it that B word (budget) ) we can predict what other money we will have available.

The key to the exercise is knowing what your financial personality is and then using a budgeting program that suits you.

Enjoy your Money
The Budget Man

Visit www.PersonalityBudgeting.com to take the free quiz that helps you discover your financial personality.

[GreyhoundLoner]

My entertainment is my cable/internet service. I am home 99% of the time, due to disability and I can't read like I used to due to some of the meds. I'd go insane if I didn't have movies, surfing, blogging etc. I don't go to the theater, I wait until they're on cable, plus people talking during really bugs me, so that's a good thing. The last time I went to see a movie was the last Star Wars installment, in IMAX.

[crabbypatty]

I was just thinking about this today.

I'm on the board of a club. The other board members use the board meeting as an opportunity to meet at a restaurant and eat out. This irritates me b/c they choose sit-down tablecloth restaurants where I feel awkward if I don't order food. I consider eating out part of my entertainment budget and I'm not spending that money on a board meeting. After months of feeling bad sitting at a table while others eat, I have decided not to attend the meetings anymore. My term is up in June, I have not decided how I will explain this to the other members. I am still committed to the business of the club.

I really try to make sure my entertainment expenses are ones that I enjoy, not things I feel obligated to do. That said, we spend about $100 a month on entertainment including meals away from home.

[shelbylovesmelby]

The only entertainment that is budgeted is my internet that's about it. Depends on the time of year though when we have more or less $ as to if we have enough to consider a trip to a fast food place or a casual sit down meal.

But beyond that most of our entertainment is basically free. Parks, walking trails, window shopping, weeding my garden (if you can call that fun *lol*), visiting friends & family.

Though this year I'm looking @ getting a ZOO PASS it'll run under $100 for an entire year of UNLIMITED visits & w/ lil ones that is something that easily amuses them & much cheaper than paying $9/adult x2 $6/kid x2 + $8 parking PER VISIT that's what $40 just for a trip to the ZOO w/o even considering the gift shop & other expenses kids can incur.

[PetMom]

I think some categories might overlap as although we spend $90.00
for all the cable channels every month, we don't go on vacations.
We have been on only one in our 15 years.

We are big matinee spenders and worse, I tended to purchase
some of the DVD's of my favorite movies only to watch them end
up on cable. This has been a 0 expense lately as we had to cut
back spending.

No restaurants either for our entertainment now.

We are considering going out soon as this is quite restrictive, and
you can bet it will be even more appreciated after not doing
this for a while.

It is sort of difficult to find free entertainment other than a park.

We used to have a some great museums that were free and
now charge money for the traveling exhibits; a lot of fairs and
festivals that used to be nominal in cost now are almost prohibitive...
plus they insist you not bring in food of your own or even water
at some of these.


I guess potluck/grilling with family and friends is the next lowest
cost option of entertainment we do. We have gone camping
but had to pay one of those campground fees that we noticed
had gotten quite a bit high.

[Ima saver]

When I was younger, we had no money for entertainment. My first husband and his family played cards many nights a week. That was a cheap form of entertainment. i enjoy playing bridge now, but dh is not into cards, so we eat out.
We ate home last night, it cost more than going out and was a lot of work too.

[Aleta]

Maybe he doesn't like cards, but maybe he might like board games. They can be a lot of fun.

Sometimes, when I make a large lasagna or eggplant parmigian, I divide it into servings and freeze it for individual servings. I find it more reasonable to cook than to go out. There are alot of meals that are fast to fix and are good quality at that. I buy my own chicken breast and beat them down until they are flattened and they fry in about 5 or 6 minutes and alot more reasonable than buying them in a restaurant or having the store do it for you. (Cutlets) Then, sometimes, I just add my own sauce, bake a potatoe and throw together a salad.

[tabbycat31]

my entertainment budget varies. It's higher during baseball season. However what I'm trying to do this year is look into getting a (partial) season ticket package for a minor league team, and use that as my entertainment. I can brown bag my dinner there.

[mellie]

we eat out a LOT..too much in fact this is one of the biggest money eaters that we have. Both of us have games that require a monthly fee (his is xbox live and i'm a wow'er) This month *gulp* I am trying to set up a budget so we can get our debt down and learn to live on what we make. I'll cook more and read the books I own instead of paying a monthly subscription to booksfree.com. My food budget is going to get bigger in order to encourage us to eat at home more.