Big Spender

Please note that this is NOT a sponsored post. I simply found a great tool that helps me out and would love to share it with you!

I am a bit of a spender when it comes to my money. I always have been, and I am always looking for ways to curb my spending, and remember my bills. I'm the person that pays for a paper bill, rather than email because I can never remember to pay them otherwise. I despise direct debits because I have to remember to make sure there's money in the account.

I posted last month about the system I use for my budget. Although this system works well, I still found that I was spending so much money, and I had no idea what on. Bills were starting to get forgotten, or only partly paid. 

So I headed to the app store on my iPad in search of an answer, and my purse is thanking me that I found one!

The app is called ExpenSense HD and I paid $0.99 for it (though it may not stay at this price). I am using it in conjunction with my current budget system. 

It is so simple to use, with an easy way to add an expense, or purchase, or an income. You can also input recurring incomes or expenses. I love this function, because it means that the app really runs itself, and I only need to put in any purchases that I make.

You can see a full screen of your accounts. I have put in all of my accounts, including my credit card and car loan (these can be in the minus, so that when you transfer money into them, you can see what you have outstanding). I also have a cash account. You can transfer money from one account to the other, so when I take cash out, I just transfer it from my everyday account to the cash account on the app so I always know how much cash is left. 

Every purchase you make needs to be entered into the app. It really is so easy and I just ensure that I collect receipts for everything, and then spend 5 minutes at the end of the day going through them and entering them.

Entering recurring expenses, incomes and transfers is easy and takes very little time.

This is my absolute favourite feature. It will give you a chart showing where your money is going for the month. It is very visual so you can see exactly what you are spending your money on. 

It also has a budget function that I don't really use as it is monthly, and I budget fortnightly.

So has it worked? Well, last pay has gone on exactly what it was supposed to. All of the bills are paid, my car has been paid for and everything else. I know how much spare cash I have left, and what still needs to be paid for. This app has become a huge part of my budget system!

Do you use technology for your budgeting, or pen and paper?

How does your budget work for you?

Linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for IBOT

The Dreaded Budget

On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you hate to budget? 9, maybe 10? I know that I'm going to totally regret sharing this little bit of information with you all, but I love budgets. I love sitting down with my calculator and working out all of my income, and all of my expenses.

Weird, right?

There is just something about numbers that I find so soothing. Following, or sticking to the budget, is so much harder. But, I do okay most of the time. I thought that I would share with you all how I do my family budget. As it's only me and Munchkin, it tends to be a lot simpler, however I am currently in the process of getting my financial situation back out of the red so I have to budget as to what bills my money goes on.

Please note: I will not be showing my budget, with current figures and bills. This post is showing you the process I use and how I do it. 

I budget once every two weeks. I am paid fortnightly, so only have the need to do it at this frequency. I have two plain exercise books. One is where I write down all of my fortnightly budgets, assessments of my financial situations and updates of my current over all budget. The other book is where I record all payments that I make.

When I start an overall budget I do four things.

1. Assess my current financial situation

Make a list of any debts that you have. Credit cards, loans, mortgages, money borrowed from family, anything. Come up with a total. I call this my Total Debt (yes I know, obvious). I reassess my financial situation monthly. You may not need to do it as often, but I find it changes so much from month to month and it gives me motivation to see it continue to go down regularly.

2. Come up with a budget

List your income, and list your expenses. It really is that simple. Calculate how much all of your expenses work out to be on a fortnightly basis. This means you can put money away for all of your bills to ensure they are covered when they come in. Include everything that you pay throughout the year. Things like electricity and water, do an average and work out a fortnightly figure from that.

3. Come up with your financial goals

And be specific. If you want to have $15,000 paid off of your car loan by the end of the year, write it down and work out how much you need to pay on the loan fortnightly to achieve this. Make sure your goals are achievable, but also set them high, so that you are motivated to follow them. For example, if you do your calculations and discover you can easily pay off $15,000 by the end of the year, make it your goal to pay off $17,000. 

4. Maintain your budget fortnightly

Once the previous fortnights bills have been paid, I then set out on the next fortnights budget. I have a set amount for expenses (which includes bills, groceries, fuel, etc) and the rest I allocate to different areas. I also state which bills will be due within that fortnight, before the next pay comes through.

Recording Payments

I do all of my banking online. When I pay a bill, I record all of the information and receipt number into my book. 

This means that I can easily find a payment made, without having to pull out all of the filing and find that particular bill.

Just a few tips

• Remember that this is simply how I do my own budget. I am not a financial adviser, and your budget is possibly a lot more complicated than mine. But I just wanted to share with you an easy way to track your finances.
• I keep all bills to be paid in a red manilla folder on my desk. This means that they are all in the one place, I always check it when I am doing my budget and it means that I don't have my bills out on show on the fridge for all visitors to see.
• Reassess your budget every six months. Things will most certainly have changed. Your income or your expenses. Even if they haven't changed, you need to see whether you are on track with your financial goals, and assess whether they are still important to you.