Budget Help

[jeffrey]

One of the things that I'm always impressed with is the advice this forum gives to people who have questions about their budget. The members here do a great job of focusing on where there may be waste and giving ideas on what the person can do to possibly improve their current situation. I think that a ton of people would benefit from this if they realized the free advice that is available here, and i know that I get satisfaction knowing that people coming here with questions get a lot of quality information to think about when they do list their budget for the members to see.

One of the big problems I think many people have is that they have never created a budget before. The forum gets a lot of general questions where the first response is often, "if you write your budget down, we can help you a lot more" or "we need more information"

With that in mind, Nate thought it might be good to create a simple fill in budget tool where people could input their numbers and it would create their budget post in the forums -- instead of them having to write everything out by hand. I have a general idea of what to place in the form, but I want to make sure that we aren't missing anything that you all think is important. With that in mind, when someone comes to the forums and asks for help on reducing their spending, what are the things that you want to see them list so that you can help them?

[marvholly]

I have had a budget, using excel, for >10 years and it has worked for me w/minor modifications. My line items are:

rent/mortgage (mine is actually paid off)
real estate taxes
Fed taxes (retired so no W-2 withholding)
State taxes
house Insurance
auto insurance
auto maintenance
auto license
natural gas (heat & water)
electric
water& sewer
groceries, health/beauty, house cleaning stuff
pet food & care (vet, license, shots)
internet
cell phone
landscaper/snowplowing
Health insurance
medical co-payments
Rx
Gifts
household items
gifts
vacation
entertainment
savings

Added items I do not have:
student loans
credit card debt(s)
cable/sattilite tv
personal property/vehicle tax (not have in my town/state)

ETA: daycare/baby sitter

Looking over 3 months of credit card bills and checks written or online bill pays most people can get a pretty good idea of what they are spending for each line.

[debtfreeme]

My budget categories

Some of the categories are for monthly or yearly spending, some for savings for yearly payments.

Rent
H20/sewer/garbage
SPENDING MONEY
SMUD Electricity
PG&E Gas
Cell bill
IRA
Groceries
Household Items

Gas/fuel
Car Insurance
Renters Insurance
Car Payment
Repairs
Renewal

cable/internet
Netfix
Audible.com
College Courses
Entertainment

Personal Health savings account
Health club dues
Prescriptions
Co-payments
Vacation SAVINGS
sport equipment
Magazines subscriptions
ING Contacts/glasses savings
Taxes Preparation
Clothing
personal care
I tunes/Music (CDs, etc.)

Credit Card
Credit card
Student Loan Payment
Personal Savings
IRA payment
Gifts Savings Monthly

[marvholly]

Whoops. I did forget to list personal spending money and IRA contribution (which I have not been able to do since I lost my job at 64 in 2010).

[Retired To Win]

It would be great if the form could have 2 sections, one for mandatory/essential/basic expenses (rent!) and one for discretionary ones (vacations).

I've explained my reasoning for approaching budgeting in that manner in my post
A Discretionary Fund, Not a Discretionary Budget:

http://retired-to-win.savingadvice.com/2014/03/29/a-discretionary-fund-not-a-discretionary_107992/

Because what may be discretionary to one person could be regarded as essential to another, it would be absolutely terrific if the form were interactive enough to allow a user to drag expense items from the discretionary to the mandatory budget section and viceversa.

Finally, I would separate all investing and saving from the 2 above expenditure sections.