Budgetting Part 2

So you have committed to sticking to budget this year, now what?

Step 1 Collect as much financial info as possible, this includes check stubs, utility bills, bank statements, and any other info you can collect to establish an average on your income and individual monthly bills.

Step 2 Make a list to include all sources of income. If you work outside the home and receive a regular paycheck then use your net income (after taxes and deductions) in addition to any other income you receive from other sources.

Step 3 Create a list of all of your expected monthly expenses. We are actually going to break this down into the two types of expenses (fixed and variable)
• Fixed expenses are any bills that stay relatively the same each month. Some examples are mortgage or rent, electricity, water, gas, cable, phone, internet, credit card, loan payments, car note, monthly insurance, etc.
• Variable expenses are likely to change from month to month. Some examples are groceries, gas, gifts, eating out, etc.

Step 4 Total your monthly income and expenses. If your monthly income exceeds your monthly expenses then you can use that extra money to pay down credit cards or save for vacation. If your expenses total more than income then you are going to need to focus on making some adjustments to your expenses.


You can very easily find a Family Budget Spreadsheet by searching on the internet or do what I did and create your own using MS Excel.

This week’s homework will be to collect and organize all of this info. Once you have completed your spreadsheet please share some of your categories here. This will be great motivation for you to make sure you complete this step while at the same time helping others who aren’t sure how to group certain items.

As always I would love to hear feedback and ideas from you experienced Budgeters out there.