Household budget question

For those of you who keep a household budget - how detailed is it?

For example, do you just breakdown the basics: Income minus bills (LIPA, mortgage/rent, car payments, cable, phone, etc) and then whatever is left over is just that - left overs for spending? Or do you have a meticulous food budget? Do you break down monthly expenses on things like household cleaning items, personal care items (shampoo, conditioner, shaving supplies for DH, etc), pet care, car maintenance (oil changes, etc)?

What are your categories?

If you are very detailed about your budget - how did you budget amounts for the smaller, more variable categories?

Or am I the only one that is this anal about the household budget?

Re: Household budget question

You and my DH must both like your categories

The $1 on spend on coffee everymorning...that's in the budget. The $2 I spend on Mega Millions when the pot is huge...that is in there too.

He has everything categorized down to the penny...I think it's sad and he calls it organized.

Re: Household budget question

I have general breakdown

I don't break down for coffee- that is just "spending money"

my food budget includes stuff like shaving cream

left over money to me is savings- I give myself a set amount of spending money- DH just takes what he needs from his check- and then gives me the rest to pay the rent, his car and savings

Re: Household budget question

We're not on a tight budget because we always are able to save money, but I just make sure we don't overspend (we have more coming in & are saving it rather than spending it!) Here are our categories (I track it all in Quicken so it allowed me to cut & paste!)

INCOME
Charlie's Income:
Hospital Income
Salary-CML DDS
TOTAL Charlie's Income
Dana's Income:
Salary-GGS
TOTAL Dana's Income
TOTAL INCOME

EXPENSES
Bank Charge
Gifts Given
Household:
Condo Maintenance
Electric
Mortgage Payment
Real Estate Tax
Television
Water
TOTAL Household
Insurance:
Insurance - Car
Life Insurance
TOTAL Insurance
Misc
Section 125
Subscriptions
Taxes
TOTAL EXPENSES
OVERALL TOTAL

ETA: the "misc" category is for all our going out, dinners, clothes, credit card payment etc..so that gets rather large.

Message edited 6/1/2007 10:26:32 AM.

Re: Household budget question

Re: Household budget question

We started an excel speadsheet with income minus expenses:

Rent

Food & Cleaning supplies & personal care items. Not itemized, but a general amount spent each week.

Bills: Electric, gas, phone, internet

Cat stuff: food, litter, toys

Events: birthdays, holiday gifts, weddings. This is the only one that fluctuates a lot.

Medical stuff: Copays and prescription payments.

Clothes & shoes: I usually buy twice a year and pick up stuff as needed.

Tuition & books: That's in the budget too.

Week money: Covers work lunch, gum, magazines for a week.

Those things don't vary too much, and whatever is left is put away for savings. If we fall below the savings goal for a couple of months, we'll cut back.

We used to be REALLY anal about it, and update the spreadsheet every week with the receipts of all of those expenses. But after a couple of months, sticking to those numbers became a routine. no more updating!

Re: Household budget question

Posted by BabyAvocado

Posted by Emily

You and my DH must both like your categories

The $1 on spend on coffee everymorning...that's in the budget. The $2 I spend on Mega Millions when the pot is huge...that is in there too.

He has everything categorized down to the penny...I think it's sad and he calls it organized.

omg can I borrow his spread sheet?!

Re: Household budget question

We don't track individual items, but we do have things in certain categories.

Rent, bills, LIPA, etc are all fixed payments each month.

DH gets a set $ amt. each paycheck to do whatever he wants with. Takeout, lunches, and gas for his car usually comes out of this.

My allowance usually will go toward gas for my car, CVS trips, occasional takeout, pedicures, etc.

I don't and wont track all of DH's personal spending. I think it would be too controlling of me to do so, and it would probably frustrate me too much.

Re: Household budget question

This is our budget:

mortgage
taxes
home insurance
ultilities
cars (insurance & maintenance)
car loan
food
activities (kids)
clothes
life insurance
cellphones
medicine
credit cards
spending money
savings
dh IRA
Couch (on 0% interest cc)

Re: Household budget question

I recently figured out a budget for us. Mainly because we had no idea where all our money was going. There was little left to put in savings and I needed to figure out what was a fair amount for spending money for each of us.

I started out very detailed - for 4 weeks we wrote down every single penny we spent and on what, so I could track where our money was going. These are the categories we ended up with:

FIXED:
Mortgage
HELOC
Cablevision
LIPA
cell phones
car insurance
credit cards
Oil
gym membership

VARIABLE:
take-out/eating out
beer/going out
gas
automotive care
cigarettes
groceries
toiletries
cat food/supplies
copays/medical
gifts/holidays
clothes
house stuff
personal care (waxing, haircuts)
misc

Seeing where we spent/wasted money has made it a lot easier to cut back on things like take-out. I don't think the budget is going to stay this specific - we'll lump things together under "spending money" like gas, haircuts, lunch.
But for that month, it was really beneficial for DH (who is NOT the money person in our relationship) to see everything written down in black & white.