Group Blog Post: Budgeting | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

The key to sticking to a budget is to prioritize.  It's easy for me to say we only want to spend $300 on groceries, but the only way to keep the splurges out of my basket is to remember that I'd rather pay off our home in 10 years or less as planned.  My husband and I actually discuss almost every new purchase in terms of priority.  We want new phones with internet capability, so we had to figure out if there was anything we were already spending on that we wanted less.  This weekend, we will get smart phones for the first time and our monthly vacation budget will be taking the $70-$80 hit.  Prioritization is truly necessary for a budget to survive.

Crystal runs <a href="http://www.budgetinginthefunstuff.com/">Budgeting in the Fun Stuff</a> and covers spending, savings, and the fun stuff along the way.

Debt Free Diva, 

Yes you can have it. That is what Yakezie is all about, finding new ways to promote each other. I was just looking for something different than Carnivals. They are nice, but it is great to get some specialized information for my readers while providing the Yakezie family with some additional backlinks….and it keeps the content fresh and insightful.

WAIT!!

You can only use it if you comment on my other two Group Blog Post, lol, just joking, but here are the links.

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog…..-reduction

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog…..ent-saving

Appreciate everyones participation!

Track every cent for a month.  It doesn't matter which month.  This gives you a baseline for your spending patterns and highlights weaknesses that you may not have been aware of.

Write down and check what you spend each day for thirty days.  If you pay most things with debit or credit card, you can get itemized receipts for these purchases.  For the things you pay with cash, you can make it easy on yourself by (a) starting with the same amount of cash each day (say, $40), (b) carrying around a Post-It in your wallet or purse to remind you to write down your cash purchases, and (c) balance out your cash at the end of the day, each day, while you can still recall the things you may have forgotten.

John, aka mbhunter, has written at <a href="http://www.mightybargainhunter.com">Mighty Bargain Hunter</a> since 2005.

Most personal budgets fail because they are too restrictive.
 Before building your budget, track every
cent you spend for a month or two and categorize every expense.  Using this information, create a reasonable
budget that involves cutting/controlling the expenses, but base it on your
prior spending.  Allowing yourself to
spend on the “wants” and no just the “needs” will ensure you can stick to the
budget. Too many restrictions and you'll just leave the well-intended budget behind and revert to unaccounted for spending.

Jaymus blogs at RealizedReturns.com about <a
href="http://RealizedReturns.com">budgeting</a> as well as many other personal finance topics.

Budget by putting an automatic restriction in place.  Take out what you want for savings, retirement, and investments automatically and let the rest of your paycheck go into your account.  Spend whatever you want from there, but when the money is gone, you are out of luck.  This forces you to live on a budget the hard way.

Here you go.. thanks!

My suggestion to make sure you have a budget that you can stick to is this.  Make it realistic. Far too often people get excited about changing their financial lives, and then they proceed to create a family budget that has budget categories that are too bare bones and that just won't work in a real life situation.  For example, for one of our first budgets we created a grocery budget that was very minimal. But when we tried actually implementing the budget and spending that unrealistic amount, our budget quickly crashed and burned.  My suggestion is to track your regular monthly spending for a couple of months, and figure out how much you spend in a normal month. Then figure out which of those areas are ripe for cutting, and then create a realistic budget that will WORK. 

Mr. Money blogs at SmartOnMoney.com about personal finance topics including <a href="http://www.smartonmoney.com/the-cash-envelope-spending-system-a-great-way-to-cut-household-spending/">budgeting</a>, debt reduction, investing and income creation.