Well... one week on time is a good start. Last week Budget Naginata was away from the Budget-Compound, so Budget Edamame and I held down the fort by ourselves. I took a couple of days off of work to be with her, including Friday. Pardon my truancy.
Showdown!
Budget Ronin vs. the Perplexing Percentages of Peril!
"The alchemy of finance! Don't let your world explode!"
Things I meant to do this weekend:
1. Clean out my inbox.
2. Work up a budget spreadsheet.
3. Talk with Naginata about said spreadsheet.
4. Bake some muffins.
Things I accomplished:
1. Delicious muffins.
I just wanted to post that to demystify the oft-glamorized world of the Budget Ronin. An unproductive weekend, aside, I've been looking at some numbers here at work on my coffee break and think I'm looking at some reasonable percentages. Mind you, I am expecting some fluctuation as we continue to pay off some long term debt, but right now I think we' can say that 70% of the income can cover our obligations and expenses, which leaves us with 10% for short term projects, 10% for long-term investing and 10% for fun. That is the standard we'd like to shoot for. I think starting there and then reducing our obligations by 10% so that we can put that over to charity or redistribute to savings.
I haven't given it a lot of consideration because it looks like we're overspending on our obligations just over 5% or so. Which means we could trim off that amount from fun and still meet our budget. I have identified close to another 20% of our obligations that is long-term debt. I'm not sure we can escalate the payment of this in any easy way and still save a good chunk of money, but I intend to bring it up to Naginata so we can make an informed decision about it together. If we can move it over, we can easily get to 60% income only to obligatory cost and leave 40% open for savings/investment/recreation.
Having 40% of the Clan's income going to exactly where we want it to go makes me very happy. Assuming the car payments go according to schedule, we should be on track for being close to 30% at the top of the year.
I'm trying to think of a good way to organize receipts and expenditures. Maybe buckets or folders that get emptied out once a month. Hmmm. I know there are several online services and several computer programs that would let me track expendatures, but I would really like to make things less complicated, not more. Streamlining is what I'm aiming for.
If we are hitting our percentages, especially our obligatory expenditures and our LT/ST savings, then I'm not so inclined to be nitpicky over the remaining % points. Again, less worried that spent $5 over on any one thing, more worried if we come in 5% over budget per month.
I'm going to try and hammer out something solid with Naginata this week so that this Friday's Showdown isn't another repeat episode.
Enough rambling for now. Let me go look at buckets, baskets or bundles for our new receipt accounting.
This post came in under budget, but over time.
B.R.
5 comments:
Here's a simple way to keep receipts organized. Buy a packet of large mailing envelopes (the brown ones). Mark each one with the month and year. Put all of your receipts for each month in the right folder, put in a file cabinet or whatever. It helps to keep the little receipts (gas, grocery) together with bills received in the mail. I do this for the Rose City Rollers director cuz her desk is a scary place of scattered receipts and unopened bills.
I do like this idea. Naginata has an excel spreadsheet utility she grabbed from a friend that is on track for early retirement, so we were looking at that, but I agree something physical is really needed. I do like the envelope idea. It has the feel of what I was going for.
Another idea is to buy one of those big accordion binders that have sections for each month of the year. They sort of look like a giant recipe book. I think I've seen them at Office Max or Staples. Good luck!
I think we're starting with the envelopes. Naginata stopped by the Office Depot this afternoon. I fully expect us to be enveloped by the time I get home.
Do I get a finder's fee? JK. ;)
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