Budget

I know that I'm not the only person in the world who keeps track of her expenses using an excel file. But please tell me if this sounds quite new to you... because maybe I just belong to the crowd that has this knack for monitoring their financials, and everything else in their lives.

The financial monitoring spreadsheet I'm using right now is a third version already. I started monitoring my personal cash flows since I started working. They say, you become more critical of your spending when you are already earning to spend. At first, I simply listed all the items that I spend on and their corresponding values. This was just to have a feel of how much I spend on which items. After a few months, I decided to start allocating a budget for the different things I spend on - food, transportation, other basic expenses (medicine, toilettries, etc.), and non-basic expenses (books, clothes, etc.). Then I monitored my expenses per category for each day, and then summarized them to see if I have any budget left for the rest of the month.

I don't earn a lot from work. Well, I do earn more than most other people in the country my age, but for my capability I may say I am not earning enough. I recently transferred to a new work not because of the salary, but only because of the experience it entails. I still am earning less than I'm supposed to, and even spending a little more on the basics (food & transportation) compared to where I used to work. Thus, there is really a need for me to budget my earnings for my spending, lest I end up bankrupt.

So far the third version of my financial monitoring spreadsheet is doing well. I have a sheet which records, in summary, my total monthly debit and credit from my two bank accounts. In another sheet, I record my total spending per category per day, which then automatically summarizes it weekly and monthly. The third sheet shows the allocated budget for each category for the month, the total actual spending for each category for the month, and the remaining budget.

I do, however, record my big spendings separately - plane tickets, expensive items (watch, gadgets, jewelries), etc. I don't consider them under the budgeted categories. They are what I spend my supposed savings on. Therefore, I have no savings to speak of at the moment, ever since I started working. Especially now, I am somehow financially desperate since I am just getting out of the transition from one work to another, which entailed more expenses and less income.

But may I say, I think I did pretty well with the budgeting this past month. I have so far stayed within budget. I will probably re-allocate some budget for the next month, and I am able to determine which items I can try spending less on.

I cannot say I am an expert on this. It takes different ways for different people to sort out their finances. But if you would like to know how I exactly do this, I'd be glad to help out. :)