Great post Matt. After reading this post, I have started using a cash flow plan and I am already seeing some positives. It’s a “must do” for everyone and am sure this will help me to cut down my expenses as well.
Love the dinner story. I think that’s the power of a budget. If you’ve been tracking your expenses throughout the month, you know how much you have left to spend as you get close to the end of the month.
We also do some creative accounting from time to time, though. If we want to order a pizza and our entertainment budget is tapped out we might call it groceries or vice versa.
Matt, how many categories do you budget for? I use EXCEL which keeps a rolling report each month on monthly expense vs. monthly budget and cumulative expense vs. cumulative budget. When those latter figures turn red, we have been spending next months budget already. By artful combination, we get by with 35 categories, which we track daily. My favorite budget story is my wife saying once, on the 25th of the month, let’s go out for dinner and my reply was fine, we have $9 left in our “dining out” account, where would you like to go.
Great post Matt. After reading this post, I have started using a cash flow plan and I am already seeing some positives. It’s a “must do” for everyone and am sure this will help me to cut down my expenses as well.
Thanks Matt.
John, you’ve got us beat. We have 41 categories.
Love the dinner story. I think that’s the power of a budget. If you’ve been tracking your expenses throughout the month, you know how much you have left to spend as you get close to the end of the month.
We also do some creative accounting from time to time, though. If we want to order a pizza and our entertainment budget is tapped out we might call it groceries or vice versa.
Matt, how many categories do you budget for? I use EXCEL which keeps a rolling report each month on monthly expense vs. monthly budget and cumulative expense vs. cumulative budget. When those latter figures turn red, we have been spending next months budget already. By artful combination, we get by with 35 categories, which we track daily. My favorite budget story is my wife saying once, on the 25th of the month, let’s go out for dinner and my reply was fine, we have $9 left in our “dining out” account, where would you like to go.