Friday, September 10, 2010

Budgeting 101

I already mentioned to you before about my lack of poor budgeting skills.  Ok, that's putting it nicely -- my saving skills suck!  Thankfully, my husband is a pro at money management (we really are made for each other heehee!). The hubby has to give me A+ for effort, though, because I really try.  My attempts may not always be a success, but it's the thought that counts.
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At the start of the year, I took a suicidal plunge big leap by proposing a new budgeting scheme to the hubby.  I proposed the old-school budgeting method of using envelopes.  At the start of each month, I withdraw X amount for our expenses and divide the money in envelopes labeled as such:
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From the top: Miscellaneous expenses, Laundry/dry clean, Aly's weekly allowance, Utilities (mainly for our Chatrium bill like water, electricity, room service), Groceries, Sunday lunches/dinner out, Richard's weekly allowance, My weekly allowance and...
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...the most important envelope of all: savings a.k.a shopping money for Kris + Aly.  This is not part of the monthly budget, though.  I only put money here when there are leftovers from our utilities, laundry or grocery budget :)
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I used old envelopes, by the way :)  This has been the most effective budgeting method that I've tried so far.  How do I know it's effective?  In the nine months that we've been on this, we only went over the budget two or three times, and those were during our birthday months when we went on a trip or had visitors at home.  So if I were to rate it, I'd give it 85%.  Pwede na dba?  Here's hoping that my luck will not run out.  Christmas is fast approaching and we all know how what that means...good luck to us all!




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