Better Budget Challenge #1 — Our budgeting experiences Weekly feature

I have decided to join in on, Kacie from sensetosave.com, her better budget 2008 challenge. Click to go to the challenge

Better Budget Challenge #1 — Our budgeting experiences Weekly feature

How have you used a budget in the past? I’ve used an excel-sheet to track my budgeting in the past well no actually several excel-sheets one for recurring expenses like rent/gas/insurances etc and one for groceries/days out/gifts etc I’m not to pleased about the system because it does not really serve our family. I can stick to a budget just fine but in times that I am hospitalized or just to ill to get out of bed I have no control over the budget. I feel like I am playing: “catch up to the budget” for most of the year!

If you’ve never had a budget, how have you made decisions on how to manage your household finances? We established a budget when I was forced to go out of the work field. Before that we had either so little money a budget was not needed there was no money to keep track of every single guilder (now euro) had a destination LOL or we had enough to satisfy every want and need immediately no saving no budgeting no real awareness of money.

How did you put your budget to work? Fist thing I did when our income was deposited was pay all the recurring expenses after that I would set aside the monthly budget for food and what was left was divided amongst misc bills and bill collectors and occasionally a part would go to the saving accounts. Dh leaves the total of finances to me and it is frustrating to say the least! If I wasn’t ill I probably would not mind but because there are long periods of time that I am “out of the running” so to speak this one of the biggest setbacks for our family finance.

In what ways did your budget (or lack of) work for you?
It worked in a sense that there was never an issue of recurring expenses being late or not paid at all wich did put a sense of ease in my mind. There was always enough money to eat and drink wich is especially important when one has children.

In what ways did it fail?
There was never any real savings, misc bills would be left and sometimes forgotten until a bill collector send a letter about it and we would pay the bill and all the extra costs wich would make the bill 2 to sometimes 3 times as high as it was initially.

Think about your past experiences with budgets and your home finances. How do you want to use a budget in your personal finances? Do you want a system that you update every time you make a purchase? Every month? Do you want to have spending guidelines? I think for our family spending guidelines would work best. Tracking every penny that leaves this house just doesn’t work when dh is in charge of the budget, he did promise to look into it this year and to get himself familiar with our spending and I am grateful for that. This is why I want to establish a budget that is oversee able and realistic even when he orders out food from time to time to feed the kids when I am sick or has to pay a sitter in order to get some time to himself. Maybe set up a lil fund for times like this, with money that he can spend freely without having to be accountable for it.

What is your overall purpose in establishing a household budget? What do you hope to gain from it? Do you want to get out of debt? Have money to save or invest? Reduce your expenses? Have a better idea of where your money is going? We would like to be totally debt free we have paid off almost 60% of our total debts in the last years but we would like to set up home outside of the Netherlands and do not want to have any financial obligations left. I have set 2 more years to achieve this. I would also love a system that keeps tracks of the misc bills and their due dates so no more late-fees have to be paid. Another thing that would be wonderful is to lower our spending on groceries.

Anything else you want to mention about your past or future budgets?
The biggest burden on our budget is travelling. It has gotten so bad now that I recent having to travel to my homeland! Now don’t get me wrong I love to see my family but spending over 5000 euros for a few weeks of visiting family is just not worth it to me! The last time I visited was in 2005 and I had to use all my reserves and savings for this trip. This was now 3 yrs ago and my family expects us to visit again this year because they want to see us and especially the grandchildren. I fully understand this but they can’t seem to understand that if I use 5000 euros I will have to play catch up with finances for the next 2 years till it is time for the next forced trip. I have no idea how to overcome this, my grandmother is simply to old and ill to travel and I can fully understand that she wants to see the kids and us but this way we will never reach our financial goals! I wish there was some kind of solution for this one that made all of us happy and still leaves space for financial growth as a family. I know that dh understands that I want to visit my family but his sister lives in China and she has not seen our youngest ever and has not seen her brother and nephew for 4 years! I can imagine that he would love to visit her as well, but there is no budget for that! I really need help with this one! I pray about it and try to ease my soul with the idea that my grandmother needs this but the little voice in my head keeps asking me what about the family needs :-(