Tuesday Tip: Budget Series Week 3

For those of you that regularly follow my blog, I promise I didn’t forget about you guys and today’s Tuesday Tip, I’m just posting a little later due to the fact I’m working at a soccer camp and my schedule is a lot more hectic than usual. But never fear, your Tuesday Tip is here!

If you missed week 1 and 2 of the budget series, feel free to check those out by clicking here: https://emilieedwards.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/tuesday-tip-budget-series-week-1/ and here: https://emilieedwards.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/tuesday-tip-budget-series-week-2/ .

This week, I’ll be talking about actually setting your budget. The timing worked out perfectly as August starts in just a couple short days, so if you’re following along with me, you’ll be able to start your new budget on August 1st! To start off, here are a few ground rules to keep in mind as you decide where to allocate your money in your budget.

1. Be realistic: If you’re only making $100 a month, don’t tell yourself you’re going to put $90 into savings and live off of the other $10 (An extreme example I know, but I’m just trying to make a point.) Instead, consider how much you realistically need in order to survive, not necessarily comfortably, but also so that you’re not getting yourself into financial trouble either.

2. Be honest with yourself: Along with number one, be honest with yourself. As you’re considering your needs and wants, while I know it may be tempting to consider coffee or eating out a need, be honest with yourself about whether or not you can live without those things. Also be honest when you’re considering where to cut back. While you may not want to cut back your entertainment budget because that might mean going out with friends less, if you know you’re spending too much money on eating out, you need to cut back.

3. Stick to it: We all know that sticking to a budget isn’t going to be easy, but it’s gotta be done. Take it one day at a time and don’t be discouraged if you slip up occasionally. Also, don’t be afraid to reward yourself along the way. Did you stay within budget for a whole month? Buy yourself a coffee or a new clothing item, but don’t go crazy!

Alright-and now on to actually setting the budget. I won’t be sharing my actual budget worksheet due to the sensitive information it contains, but I’ll be showing you samples.

To start my budget, I first listed my income sources, which include my allowance and loan reimbursement. I listed this on a simple Excel worksheet so that as I add in income or expenses the worksheet will calculate totals for me.

Income Listing

Next I listed any expenses that were fixed expenses. This included savings, tithe, car insurance, and my phone bill. These fixed expenses are ones that will stay the same from month to month. For both my savings and tithe I have committed to setting aside 10% of my monthly income. I was tempted to cut back in these areas, but I believe that the Bible calls us to give, so I couldn’t cut back on my tithe and I also want to build the habit of having money set aside in my savings, so 10% will be automatically set aside to my savings account each month. I also listed these in the Excel spreadsheet underneath the income.

Fixed Expenses

Finally I listed my other expenses. I was a little more lenient in this area due to the fact I’ll be moving to Nashville in just a few short weeks and know I will be spending a little bit more due to moving expenses, the cost of living being higher in the city, and also being unsure of exactly what my rent and utilities will be or how much I will be spending on school supplies. I plan on reevaluating after my first full month in the city to once again see where I will be able to cut back. Also since I indicated during last weeks evaluation of income and expenses that I wanted to spend less on eating out, entertainment, crafts, and clothes, I intentionally delegated less money to these categories. My other expenses categories included: Rent/Utilities, Gas, Groceries, Amenities (toiletries and cleaning supplies), School (paper, ink, pens, etc.), Entertainment (Eating out, movies, books, etc.), Loans (Loan bills, yuck!), Wedding Savings, and Miscellaneous (anything that doesn’t fit into the other categories.) Again, these were listed in the Excel spreadsheet.

Finally, I added up the totals of the fixed and other expenses and subtracted it from my income total. This is my leftover/emergency money so that especially in this first month of my move if I find that certain things cost more than I anticipated I will have the money to cover it.

In the end, my spreadsheet looked like this:

Throughout the month of August I will continue to track my spending as I talked about during week one, as well as take time at the end of the month to evaluate once again my income and expenses and see what I may need to change within my budget. For now, this will end the budget series until we return for week 4 at the end of August, when I’ll discuss the importance of reevaluating your budget.

Until then, my goals for the month of August are to spend less on entertainment as well as put as much money towards loan payments as possible.

What are your budgeting goals for the month of August? What did you think of the budget series so far? What do you think will be the hardest part of budgeting for you? Feel free to share by leaving a comment below!

Tuesday Tip: Budget Series Week 2!

Alright, today we’re going to be tackling evaluating our income and expenses, which can be difficult and scary if we’re being honest with ourselves. It’s really easy to convince yourself you’re a smart spender if you don’t know how much you’re spending, but if you’re like me when you finally sit down and add up all those little numbers, it can end up being a much bigger number than you’d like. In order to encourage smart spending and establishing a budget that works for you, here are some simple steps to evaluating your income and expenses.

1. Review your spending tracker: Last week we talked about tracking your income and spending, whether through an online spreadsheet or printed document. After tracking your income and spending for at least 2 weeks, but a month will probably give you a better idea of your finances, it’s time to figure out where your money is coming from and going. I reviewed what I had tracked of June and then my more careful tracking of July. Throughout the month I wrote down every expense and income on the tracking sheet I shared with you last week and then at the suggestion of a friend (Thanks Angela!) I decided to check out Evernote as a way to keep things further organized. On Evernote I made two charts, one for reviewing my income and one for reviewing my expenses. This allowed me to organize my expenses by category, rather than by date as on the spending tracker.

A glimpse of my budget evaluation on Evernote (personal information has been covered for obvious reasons)

I simply created a two column chart, one for the source of the income/expense and the other for the amount of money either coming in or going out. This allowed me to easily see how much I was spending where, as well as how much I was making each month.

2. Figure out your average spending: Your next step is to calculate about how much you spend in each category per month. If you’ve only tracked for one month, then the number in your amount column next to each category is your average. If you’ve tracked for more than one month, you can calculate your average by adding together the amount from each category each month and then dividing by the number of months you were tracking. For example if you tracked you spending in June and July and spent $50 on groceries in June and $75 in July, your average spending on groceries is ($50 + $75)/2 = $62.5

3. Figure out where you need to cut back: Now use your average spending to decide where you need to cut back. Once I averaged out my spending for the last two months, I realized that I have been spending way too much on eating out, crafts, clothes, and entertainment. I highlighted these areas on my average spending sheet, as you can see below.

Average Spending sheet- also made in Evernote

4. Determine your necessary expenses: This will vary slightly from person to person, but in general, I’m sorry but coffee or retail therapy don’t count as necessary expenses. For me, my necessary expenses include loan payments, car and phone insurance, phone payment, rent and utilities, and tithing. These are things that I can’t avoid spending money on or in the case of tithing, that I believe I should be spending money on, and in general are also fixed expenses. As I said, this may look differently for you, but you’re only hurting yourself and your wallet if you insist things that aren’t really necessary expenses are actually necessary.

And that concludes week 2 of creating a simple budget! Feel free to comment below and let me know how week 1 of tracking your spending went if you’re following along, or contribute suggestions of your own. Next week we’ll be sitting down to do the hard, but important stuff, actually setting our budget!

Tuesday Tip: Budget Series- Week 1

For the next month or so, my Tuesday Tips will center around planning and creating a simple, but effective budget. Over the last year I’ve tried various budgeting methods, but haven’t been able to find one that worked for me. It was either too complicated- so I couldn’t keep up with it, or it just didn’t really fit my organizational style. So I decided to pull things I liked from the different budgets I tried and added to them a few of my own ideas, to create my own method of budgeting. Hopefully it will be able to help some of you!

Week one of the budget series is going to focus on tracking your spending. I had never taken the time to track my spending before this, so I wanted to do so and figure out where my money was coming from and going to. I have always thought I was pretty good with my money, but after tracking my spending for the past month or so, boy did I realize how wrong I was! I found that I spend way too much money on eating out and while I don’t make a lot of huge purchases, I tend to spend my money on a lot of little, usually unnecessary expenses that eventually add up. Seeing this was one of the main reasons I wanted so start a budget system that works for me, because I want to be as frugal as possible throughout grad school, so I don’t come out more in debt than necessary.

Here are the steps I took in order to track my spending:

1. Look at past banking statements: I printed out my banking statements from the past 3 months and marked whether each one was an income or expense and then color coded them with hi-lighter by category, such as gas, food, school, etc. This allowed me to get an idea of where my money had been going the past three months and gave me an idea of what my budget categories would be.

Example of the key I used

2. Make a tracking sheet: I realized that my banking statements didn’t record all of my income and expenses, as I also often pay for things with cash. For the remainder of June I just kept track of everything I spent and earned on a scrap sheet of paper, writing down the date, what I spent money on, and the amount I spent. I found this was a little to messy for me, so I ended up creating a chart on Word, which contained the same information, but in a more organized form. I’ve been using this for the month of July and it has been working great so far. I printed mine out and put it in a “Budget Binder,” because I’ve found that I do a lot better with writing things down with pen and paper than keeping track of it on a computer. I try and right everything down right after I spend it, but this isn’t always possible, so I just always ask for a receipt and input the expense as soon as possible afterwards. Feel free to download the chart for your own use here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16U-zi9u63-vdXAArWydeeKlRxylTzH1s36koDLC-Wnc/edit?usp=sharing

Scrap sheet of paper tracking

The much more organized chart

Be sure to categorize your spending so that when it comes time to analyze where your money is going as well as build your budget, you have an idea of what you’ll need to include in your budget. An example of some of the categories I use are: Gas, Eating Out, Clothes, Entertainment, School, and Insurance.

3. Keep that check book balanced!- I am so bad at keeping my checkbook balanced, but it is an important part of budgeting and smart finances in general, so I decided to make this another priority of my budget. To ensure I was balancing my check book at least once a week, I set a reminder in my phone to go off weekly at a day and time I know that I am usually home. Until I get a chance to balance my checkbook and add expenses onto my tracking sheet, I keep my receipts in this nifty little “Receipts” envelope I made, and then toss them out once everything is balanced.

 

So for the next week I challenge you to start tracking your expenses, whether using my method, a variation of it, or your own method entirely! One of the keys to successful budgeting is finding something that works best for you. Check back in next week for the next step- evaluating your income and expenses!  In the mean time, feel free to leave a comment below with your own budgeting tips!

Tuesday Tip: DIY Desk Organizer & Repurposed Canisters

Hope everyone’s Tuesday is off to a good start! I know mine has been. I’ve gotten a lot of work done around the house and even got a call that I don’t have to go into work tonight, which means I can watch all of the USA vs Belgium World Cup game! So all is good in the world, haha. Anyways, today you get TWO Tuesday Tips- one because I’m in such a good mood, and two, because they’re such easy projects, it just made more sense to share them in one post.

Project #1: Desk Organizer

So this desk organizer is the easiest project I’ve completed so far, and it looks and works great! I had some mason jars left over from last week’s Mason Jar Organizer project, so I was searching for projects I could complete with the last few mason jars I had left over. In my searching I stumbled across a desk organizer made out of mason jars, and I couldn’t believe how easy the instructions were. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the process, but I have a picture of the finished project, and the steps are so simple, a visual is hardly necessary.

What You Need:

• 5 Mason Jars (any size)
• Hot Glue Gun

Seriously- that’s all you need.

1. First, apply a line of hot glue on one side of one of the mason jars.

2. Attach a second mason jar to the first by pressing the side of the second mason jar to the side of the first mason jar with the hot glue on it.

3. Add a line of hot glue to the free side of the second mason jar, and then attach the third mason jar. Now you should have a line of three mason jars hot glued together.

4. Take the fourth mason jar and apply two parallel lines of hot glue to the rounded edges of the bottom of the jar. Attach this jar to the top of the line of three mason jars, so that it lies on top of and between the first and second mason jars.

5. Repeat step four with the fifth mason jar, only this time attach it on top of and between the second and third mason jars. Your finished project should look like a pyramid of mason jars.

Now you have a simple and cute organizer for your pens and pencils to sit on your desk- as pictured below:

I can’t wait to use mine for school in the fall- I’m such an organization nerd!

 

Project 2: Repurposed Kitchen Canisters

So about a month ago, my best friend and I were at a community garage sale and I stumbled upon a set up sugar, flour, and salt canisters for $2. I didn’t really like the color of them, but knew I would want them for the apartment kitchen, especially since I’m planning on trying to do a lot of baking and cooking, so I figured there was no way I was going to beat this deal. In an effort to make the canisters more attractive for a graduate students apartment, I decided to do a little repurposing- and you can too!

What You Need:

• Kitchen Canisters
• FolkArt Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint in your favorite color (or colors)
• Paintbrush

Again, another so simple project! All I did was take the paint and the paint brush, and repaint the canisters and they look brand new! Total, the project cost me about $4, and I have a set of kitchen canisters that look great for that price, instead of buying a brand new set for much more than that. Check out the before, during, and after pictures below:

Before

The paint you’ll need

During

After 🙂

I’m also thinking of adding some chalkboard labels- I’ll be sure to update you if I do!

Well I’m off to watch the soccer game- Happy crafting all! Leave a comment about your latest repurposing project, I’d love to hear about it!

 

Tuesday Tip: $5 Savings Jar

Today’s tip is a quick and easy way for you to save up some money for something special- whether it’s a pair of shoes you’ve had your eyes on for awhile, a short vacation/road trip, or something else entirely. All you need is some place to stash your money, some five dollar bills, a goal for what you want to spend your money on, and the willpower to do it.  I call this method the $5 Savings Jar.

All you have to do is every time you receive a five-dollar bill, tuck it away in a specified envelope, jar, or piggy bank. And then just keep doing this until you reach the goal you had in mind and have enough set aside to purchase whatever you were aiming for! This is a great way to set aside money for something that doesn’t necessarily fit into your budget currently without affecting other areas of your budget. I’ve also found that now that I’m waitressing, I have an abundance of five-dollar bills, so my jar has been filling up rather nicely. Currently I’m saving up money to cover the expenses for traveling to Vermont for the wedding of two close friends. I’m hoping that by the time August rolls around I’ll have enough money in the jar for gas, lodging, and food, that I won’t even have to touch my debit card on the trip! I’ve been saving five dollars consistently for probably the last 6 months, and already have $365 saved!

Here’s an example of what my jar looks like:

I also added a sticky note to the outside so that I’m inspired/reminded of why I’m saving every time I’m tempted to borrow a couple fives from the jar. I think my next savings goal will be to save up some money to start paying off my loans, even though they’ll be in deferment while I’m in graduate school. I’d rather get out of debt ASAP!

What will you use your $5 Savings Jar for?

Tuesday Tip: Bookworm

I am an avid reader and always have been. As a kid, I would get as many books out of the library as I could at a time, and because I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to read first, I would read two or three books at a time. One of the things I dislike the most about being at school is that I never have enough time to read for fun. But I try to make up for it over the summer. For example, in the month or so since I’ve been home, I’ve already read eight books, and some of those in less than a day.

Unfortunately, my reading habit can get expensive. When I walk into a bookstore, I can spend hours there and will inevitably leave with one or two books. Used bookstores and garage sales are even more of my weakness, since I convince myself that because the books are cheaper, I can buy more of them, and end up spending just as much as if I was buying new books. With graduate school and all of the expenses that come with it rapidly approaching, I’ve found some ways to save money, while still getting to enjoy as many books as I want, and wanted to share them with you for today’s Tuesday Tip.

1. The library is your best friend. Head to your local library and you can get a library card for free and borrow books to your heart’s content. This is something I don’t do often enough, but I plan on frequenting the library this summer and as soon as I move, plan on finding the closest library to my apartment and getting a library card. When borrowing a library book, you can read whatever books you want and as many as you want, without any expense to you. And if you stumble across a book you love and can’t live without, you can always buy it later.
2. Used bookstores and yard sales are a great place to find books for cheap. Especially at yard sales, people are just trying to get rid of boxes of books they’ve had sitting around, so don’t be afraid to strike a bargain. Also, used books are just as good as new ones, and personally, I love them a little bit more for their wear and tear.
3. If you have an e-reader such as a Nook or Kindle, check out this great website, BookBub. All you have to do is give them your email and they’ll send you a daily email featuring discounted or even free e-books! They aren’t always the most popular books, but they’re good reads, and I’ve found some books that I’ve absolutely loved through BookBub. I have like 20 or 30 books waiting on my Nook for me to read that I’ve downloaded. Even if you don’t have an e-reader, you could probably download the Kindle app to your computer and get the discounted books that way, if you don’t mind reading on your computer.
4. Swap books with your friends! Find a friend who has a similar taste in books to you and borrow each other’s books. It saves money and then you and your friend can spend some quality time discussing the books you’ve both read, and you can discover some great books that way too.

I hope this post helps my fellow book worms out there save some money and find some really good books to curl up with this summer! Do you guys have any ways that you save money on books? Leave a comment below and share your ideas!

Tuesday Tips: DIY Laundry Detergent

In an effort to try to post at least once a week and add some consistency to the blog I’ve decided I would start posting weekly “Tuesday Tips.” Each Tuesday I’ll try to post a new DIY project, recipe, organizational, money-saving, etc. tip or trick I’ve tried out and let you know how it worked, give you my own suggestions, and hopefully send you on your way with something new to try.

This week, I’d like to share with you the DIY Laundry Detergent I first made about two years ago, and I haven’t gone back to regular laundry detergent since. The summer before my junior year of college, I wanted to find some ways to save money, since I’d be living in a townhouse on campus, which was going to be more expensive than living in the residence halls. I was also at the peak of my Pinterest obsession, searching through Pinterest on my phone every spare moment I had. My best friend shared my Pinterest obsession, and came across this post about how to make your own laundry detergent, tried it, and loved it. So I figured, hey, I might as well try it too. I made it up one weekend, with some of my own alterations, and then tried it out the next time I did laundry, and absolutely loved it. The best part, is that the entire batch I made lasted my the next two years until I graduated! And as a dual-sport athlete, I was doing laundry at least once a week, if not more.

Here are the alterations I made to the “recipe” from the original post and some of the other things I found out as I made my own batch of laundry detergent.

Ingredients: I found all of the ingredients in the laundry detergent aisle of Wal-Mart, except the box of baking soda, which I found in the cooking aisle.

• 1 Box of Borax
• 1 Box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
• 1 Container of OxyClean (3 lb)
• 2 Bars of Fels Naptha Soap
• 1 Box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (4 lb)

Directions:

It really can’t get any easier than this- Just grab a large plastic bin or tote, and dump all of the ingredients in there and mix. The only thing you have to do first is grate the bars of Fels Naptha, and after that you’re all set to go.

Once my detergent was made, I stored most of it in the bin I mixed all the ingredients in, and then bought a small plastic jar to use to carry detergent back and forth to the laundry room at school. You only need about two tablespoons of detergent per load, so I used the measuring cup that came in the container of OxyClean and made a mark at 2 tablespoons so it was easy to measure out each time. I also just threw the detergent into the washer itself on top of the clothes, and my clothes came out clean each and every time! My only “warning” of sorts, is that if you’re looking for an actual scent, like lavender, you won’t get it with this homemade stuff. However, I found that using dryer sheets when I dried my clothes gave it an actual scent, or you can also add 1 bottle of Purex Fabric Softner Crystals to the detergent mix for an added scent. Without these two things, the clothes didn’t have an unpleasant odor to them after they’re washed, they just didn’t have an odor at all.

I love this DIY Laundry Detergent because it’s so simple and cheap to make! Total, I think the detergent cost me $15 to make, but I got 2 years worth of laundry loads out of it, so I’d say I saved quite a bit of money! Try it for yourself, and let me know what you think in the comment box!