Budget
I hate this word and frankly we fail at keeping to one. We’ve racked up debt and both hubby and I
lean towards impulse spending. I’ve watched my own
parents go bankrupt. I recognized too
that there are things I really want to be part of my life and future– and chasing the
almighty dollar was not one of them.
Past tense : We
were unhappy and needed to take our financial lives by the reins.
The funny thing – wait for it – I am a bookkeeper for a
local non-profit. I track their money,
reconcile their accounts, track the budget and suggest areas of improvement. I hear you laughing.
A debt-addled individual bookkeeping when she doesn’t even keep her own
books.
Last April, I changed this.
I purchased (online) the same software I use at work and began to track
our spending. At first we didn’t change
any of our habits but we looked at areas that we felt we spent too much. It turned out that we found three areas that
our money was ‘leaking’.
1.
Fast Food (over $1800 per year? Chips, Pop, Convenience Stores, Take Out)
2.
Gym Membership ($700 a year and we were not getting there more than once a week)
3.
Vehicle Expenses (Specifically Insurance and
Fuel).
These are the area’s we budgeted first and began to practice
changing habits. Fast food is now a
travel-only treat. Our Gym-Membership
was cancelled except for our daughter – whose membership can be entered as a
tax-credit on our federal forms. And our
vehicle expenses: 1) we shopped around for insurance rates and found one that
saved us $1400 a year and 2) I decided that 3 days a week, May 1 – October 1st, I will be biking to work (That is 63 days of
biking 9kms or 567km saved in gas. It
also makes up for the cancelling of a gym membership).
Budgeting is a learning curve. We are still struggling in some areas but we
continue to WATCH our finances and improve the ‘leaks’.
Here is a link to a great resource if you are interested in
starting a budget. Ten steps - just ten steps: Canadian Budget Binder
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