Money discipleship task - write a household budget
Make a household budget (not including absolute amounts of money, but percentages).
On Thursday 19th March Nan Watson will be leading a little workshop on budgeting. Nan gives financial advice at the Citizen's Advice Bureau.
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I'm planning an extra money task of my own. For the month of March, I'm planning to write down everything I spend each day on non-essentials.
I think it'll be interesting to see where my money goes, how often I'm 'treating' myself, why I spend when I do, what's going on at the time, etc. I think it might be a revealing and useful exercise; I'll hopefully become that bit more aware of my spending habits and the emotions that motivate each 'treat-spend'.
My trouble with the whole budgeting idea, has always been how you stick within the limits you set, practically. I've always done us a family budget, just so I know how much roughly we have to spend in each area and that we can afford to get to the end of each month.
But the trouble comes I find, in keeping track of what's being spent on what. It can be very time-consuming to itemise each outgoing, when sometimes you can buy a magazine, a pair of socks and a bunch of flowers alongside your weekly food shop. It feels like cheating somehow to put it all down on your tally as 'groceries'...
Now Kitty's here of course, the last thing I have time and energy for is totting up our monthly accounts. It's become a case of hoping for the best each month, which doesn't feel like the best stewardship.
I've started this, today. I've never really budgeted properly before, but this morning I braved the spreadsheet program on my laptop.
So far I've gone through January's bank statement and added up what we spent in each area, to give me an idea what is going out.
Then I made a budget prediction sheet for March. I typed in all the regular income going in to the account, and then all the regular direct debits going out. The money left over (and there was some, phew) I then allocated to Groceries, Petrol and Cash for Daily Expenses, in proportion according (more or less) to how much we spent on those things in January.
When February's bank statement arrives, in about a week, I'll make another spreadsheet totalling February's spending and that will give me a better idea of what might happen in March.
Already I feel potentially a little more in control, which has to be a good thing.
That sounds great H; I'm glad it's proving a positive experience for you.
I had a go at ours today too. I wasn't sure whether to write one based on what we actually spend or what we ought to be spending (and saving). I went for what we actually spend in the end, as in the past I've written rather strict amounts for cash/clothes/home/entertainment and never come anywhere near the amounts, which always left me feeling a bit rubbish.
Before having Kitty, I tallied our spending each month to see what was going where. Which may have been better stewardship, but I am finding an upside of this slacker way of doing things (otherwise known as burying your head in the sand and hoping for the best) is that my left hand really hasn't got a clue what the right one is being generous with. (That said, perhaps if I did tally it up, I'd find it was shockingly little...)
p.s Today I caught myself in my first instance of 'emotional buying'. It'll go down on my record that, in a grump, I bought (and polished off) an entire tub of Cookie Dough Ben 'n' Jerry's. Did it make me feel happier? It did actually, at least for the 10 minutes or so that I was thinking of nothing more than having a mouth stuffed full of good ice cream... (It's at times like this I should be turning to God, isn't it? Ho hum.)
Really helpful 'budgeting' session last night led by Nan Watson... so relieved that what we're already doing is ok but also very interesting to learn about what to do if circumstances change. Thank you. :0)
Hey there... Finally got round to doing the homework! For my budget, I put all of my receipts into an Excel spreadsheet divided between my regular outgoings (bills & direct debits) and my main areas of expenditure of money left over(Groceries, Petrol, Spending/going out, cats!) and then it adds it up & helps me to see how I'm doing against my budget. I'd be happy to give people a template if they want it - email me (geoff@sofachurch.com).
The other thing I have done for my homework is tried to consolidate my debt... This is something I've struggled with for a while (Being at Uni then in church work then at theological college til nearly 30 didn't really help!), but I'm trying to be responsible by putting all of it into one place & get a good deal so that I can pay off more of the actual debt (a lot goes on just paying interest on how I have it set up currently)...
Not much luck so far (have been declined) but I'll keep plugging away. I have resolved though to try & be responsible in how I pay my debts off :)
Make a household budget (not including absolute amounts of money, but percentages).
5 comments:
I'm planning an extra money task of my own. For the month of March, I'm planning to write down everything I spend each day on non-essentials.
I think it'll be interesting to see where my money goes, how often I'm 'treating' myself, why I spend when I do, what's going on at the time, etc. I think it might be a revealing and useful exercise; I'll hopefully become that bit more aware of my spending habits and the emotions that motivate each 'treat-spend'.
My trouble with the whole budgeting idea, has always been how you stick within the limits you set, practically. I've always done us a family budget, just so I know how much roughly we have to spend in each area and that we can afford to get to the end of each month.
But the trouble comes I find, in keeping track of what's being spent on what. It can be very time-consuming to itemise each outgoing, when sometimes you can buy a magazine, a pair of socks and a bunch of flowers alongside your weekly food shop. It feels like cheating somehow to put it all down on your tally as 'groceries'...
Now Kitty's here of course, the last thing I have time and energy for is totting up our monthly accounts. It's become a case of hoping for the best each month, which doesn't feel like the best stewardship.
I've started this, today. I've never really budgeted properly before, but this morning I braved the spreadsheet program on my laptop.
So far I've gone through January's bank statement and added up what we spent in each area, to give me an idea what is going out.
Then I made a budget prediction sheet for March. I typed in all the regular income going in to the account, and then all the regular direct debits going out. The money left over (and there was some, phew) I then allocated to Groceries, Petrol and Cash for Daily Expenses, in proportion according (more or less) to how much we spent on those things in January.
When February's bank statement arrives, in about a week, I'll make another spreadsheet totalling February's spending and that will give me a better idea of what might happen in March.
Already I feel potentially a little more in control, which has to be a good thing.
That sounds great H; I'm glad it's proving a positive experience for you.
I had a go at ours today too. I wasn't sure whether to write one based on what we actually spend or what we ought to be spending (and saving). I went for what we actually spend in the end, as in the past I've written rather strict amounts for cash/clothes/home/entertainment and never come anywhere near the amounts, which always left me feeling a bit rubbish.
Before having Kitty, I tallied our spending each month to see what was going where. Which may have been better stewardship, but I am finding an upside of this slacker way of doing things (otherwise known as burying your head in the sand and hoping for the best) is that my left hand really hasn't got a clue what the right one is being generous with. (That said, perhaps if I did tally it up, I'd find it was shockingly little...)
p.s Today I caught myself in my first instance of 'emotional buying'. It'll go down on my record that, in a grump, I bought (and polished off) an entire tub of Cookie Dough Ben 'n' Jerry's. Did it make me feel happier? It did actually, at least for the 10 minutes or so that I was thinking of nothing more than having a mouth stuffed full of good ice cream... (It's at times like this I should be turning to God, isn't it? Ho hum.)
Really helpful 'budgeting' session last night led by Nan Watson... so relieved that what we're already doing is ok but also very interesting to learn about what to do if circumstances change.
Thank you.
:0)
Hey there... Finally got round to doing the homework! For my budget, I put all of my receipts into an Excel spreadsheet divided between my regular outgoings (bills & direct debits) and my main areas of expenditure of money left over(Groceries, Petrol, Spending/going out, cats!) and then it adds it up & helps me to see how I'm doing against my budget. I'd be happy to give people a template if they want it - email me (geoff@sofachurch.com).
The other thing I have done for my homework is tried to consolidate my debt... This is something I've struggled with for a while (Being at Uni then in church work then at theological college til nearly 30 didn't really help!), but I'm trying to be responsible by putting all of it into one place & get a good deal so that I can pay off more of the actual debt (a lot goes on just paying interest on how I have it set up currently)...
Not much luck so far (have been declined) but I'll keep plugging away. I have resolved though to try & be responsible in how I pay my debts off :)
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