How do you categorize your bills?

**wblake** · 08-28-2008, 09:55 AM

Personally, I put my cell phone under utilities, hair cuts would go under household, and I split the cable & internet between entertainment and business (I use the internet for business, so I break it out of the total).

I track all my spending in Quicken on the computer. At one time, I was extremely detailed in how I tracked everything, so I could find out exactly what I'm spending on almost anything at any given time.

I realized a couple of years ago that the amount of time I spent categorizing everything and making sure it was "just right" was far more valuable than the return I got on it.

My cell phone gets lumped in under utilities, for example, so it's added in with the landline, electricity and various other things. But I know it's in there so if I find the utilities are costing too much, I know that the cell phone expense is one of the things to consider cutting back on.

As far as I'm concerned, where the expenses get categorized isn't critical, as long as you know what a given category includes.

**ceejay74** · 08-28-2008, 10:56 AM

Thanks wblake! That's what I decided to do, except I put all of the cable/Internet under Mortgage (I changed the category name to Mortgage/Utilities/Telecom) to keep it simple.

My breakdown ended up being
Mortgage/utilities/telecom: 28% of take-home
Debt repay: 37%
Spending/entertainment: 20%
Household/grocery: 15%

I'd like to see entertainment go down a bit the next time one of us gets a raise, especially when you consider that cable TV isn't included. And debt repay to go up, until it's time to start saving. But other than that I'm pretty happy with the numbers.

**Fern** · 08-31-2008, 09:38 AM

Oh, I have a lot more categories than you. It's really up to you and what you think makes the most sense. For me, I like a more detailed accounting of where my $$ goes. That way, it's easier for me to pinpoint where i can rein in spending if i want to.

Some of my categories are:
FIXED EXPENSES
Mortgage/property taxes

Insurance:Auto
Homeowners
Health premiums

Taxes:Borough
IRS
Car tax/registration/license

OTHER FIXEDDump sticker
Sewers
Cablke TV
Internet/phone
Water

VARIABLE EXPENSES (these are the ones i can control)
House:
Electric
fuel oil/cleanings
Maintenance
Household

Personal:
Clothing
Dining out
Entertainment
Out of pocket medical
Toiletries

Hobbies:Birds
Gardening
Cat

Vacations

Other:Car Upkeep
Food
Gas
Subscriptions
Gifts

Major Purchases (anyting over $500)

**jIM_Ohio** · 08-31-2008, 10:29 AM

The most important categories for bills are:

paid or not paid
then
required or optional

all else is gravy

**kork13** · 08-31-2008, 12:08 PM

I do mine with a few more detailed categories, and I also arrange them by importance (spectrum form what I MUST spend to live to what I spend because I want to. Also, I do mine based on my gross pay, so I include taxes and such.

Taxes/Soc Sec/Medicare
Housing (rent)
Debt
Food/Household items
Auto (Gas/Maint.)
Utilities (Power, Water, Phone, Cable, Internet)
Church/Charity
Insurance
Savings/Investments
Spending/"Mad Money"
Miscellaneous (for all those random little expenses... so haircuts, for ex., are in here)

**ceejay74** · 09-02-2008, 08:38 AM

Interesting! I was thinking people tracked certain categories to keep them to a certain percentage; i.e., keep housing expenses to below 30%; invest/save at least 25%...that kind of thing. Apparently not many think of things that way...

**kork13** · 09-02-2008, 03:06 PM

hahaha oh, do you want my percentages, ceejay? i've got them... in fact, detailed to the point that I can confidently say my loan payments (for ex.) are 13.7115% of my monthly income. Then, if any of my categories' expenses are more than ~1-2% over what I planned for, I flip out and rifle madly through my bank statements to see what i've done to get myself in such a predicament.

Of course, there are also rules of thumb that you'll hear thrown around... Housing expenses less than 25%, save at least 10% (pref more), food costs around $75-$100/person plus $100, and so on... The problem with those, of course, are that they are extremely subjective, and the "generalization" might only work for about 50% of people.

**zakity** · 09-02-2008, 04:26 PM

I have a over-simplified budget that I use every month. We use the credit card for everything and most of these are used to track how much we spent and to make sure we stay within our budget.

I have a spreadsheet that I created for myself to keep track of the bills and the money. I am OCD about money and ADHD which means I can't remember to pay them and then it drives the OCD part of me crazy. I have a column where I track our credit card usage and these are listed at the bottom of the column with our budgeted amount and how much we have used of it. I hope that makes sense at least somewhat.

household bills (elec, natural gas, phone, cell, etc)
fuel (for the cars)
DH lunch (his blow money)
groceries (includes shampoo, deo, TP, etc)
misc (haircuts, car parts, toys, and anything else that isn't edible)
eating out
mno (my blow money)

**ceejay74** · 09-03-2008, 07:44 AM

nkthen, are you addressing me or the last poster? I'm choosing to pay off credit card debt before I save; most advise me to do so. Each person in my household does contribute the amount to their 401(k) that gets them the maximum match (except me; I don't get matching anymore, but I kept my contributions at 6% anyway). We contribute an average of 5% of our pretax salary, so not 10% of take-home but not too far off.

I'm eager to start saving more than that but I'm in a lot of debt, so I just wouldn't feel comfortable doing that right now. Once I get rid of any debt with 6% or more interest rate, I'll probably slow down debt repay and start saving a fixed amount.

**Caoineag** · 09-03-2008, 09:51 AM

I have two ways of tracking items. I have a list of each thing so I can mark off when it was paid and then I have the credit card bill I pay in full that is separated into utilities, groceries, out to eat and miscellaneous.

Utilities includes the usual utilities along with cable (internet plus basic since I have to have the TV to keep my internet speed), netflix, bus pass and cell phones (which are our only phones since we aren't home alot).

Groceries is just groceries, out to eat is just take out and restaurant meals.

Miscellaneous includes fun money, household repair items, etc. Since we rent, repair items don't warrant a separate category.

If any of these categories get out of line, I can adjust. I don't consider any of these categories as fixed since I can influence all of them to a certain extent.

If I want to know the percentages of my budget, I will run that on my line item budget, excel makes such formulas really simple so it takes about 2 seconds to run the variations. For example, my current savings of after tax money is 46.11% (would be more impressive to me if I weren't planning on spending the majority of that on a house). My dh also contributes to a 401(k) with matching.

Right now is probably not a good time to compare though. Once we buy a house, our budget is going to dramatically change. Not only that, come January, my DH will start maxing out his 401(k) which will change our savings rate as well.

**zakity** · 09-03-2008, 10:57 AM

Savings is actually on another part of the spreadsheet. The list I posted above is just my "credit card" column "oversimplified" budget that I use.

How do you categorize your bills?