Yes, I do budget

After a year of owning a credit card for the first time, I found myself oweing more than $1500.  I did pay more than the minimum, but the debt didn’t go down – until I got my income tax refund the following year and decided to use it to pay off my entire debt instead of spending it for something I really like just like I used to the previous years.

My credit card balances finally had gone down to $0 and I promised myself to work up a budget.  Amazingly I did and has been keeping at it for 5 years now.  Now I don’t think I could live without one.

How I do my budget:

I created a spreadsheet (yes, I prefer my own spreadsheet than those money software available) that allows me to track down my weekly expenses.  Not daily coz it’s too much effort to update daily, and not monthly coz too much just happens in a month that I wouldn’t remember all of them at month’s end.

Each week, I give myself an allowance.  At the end of the week, whatever is left of my allowance I set aside.  I call it my “side-savings.”  This “side-savings” is what I spend for things I want, but don’t need.  No “side-savings”, no luho .

I usually pay my bills (phone, MTA, internet, etc) in the middle of the month.  So I budget an over-estimated amount for each bill every 15th of the month.

The end of the month is savings time.  I transfer a part of my income to my ING savings that I don’t touch.  In addition, I transfer to my Citi savings a pre-calculated amount based on my annual and semi-annual expenditures (medical bills, travel, gifts, domain registration, timeshare maintenance fees and taxes, tuition and books, etc).  Yup, I save up to pay some of my bills.  Whatever is left remains in my checking account for future deficits.  But if it reaches a certain amount, I usually transfer it to my ING savings.

The end of the month is also shopping time for me.  I take out my “side-savings” and treat myself.  If I wanted something that cost more than what I have in my “side-savings,” I try wait for the next month.  However, too often I find myself just digging through my other funds instead of waiting .

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