Personal Household Budget Template

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Dave Ramsey

I realize what I’m about to say likely isn’t a good idea for you, but have you considered putting your spend in credit cards set to pay in full, and set the payment dates to fall a few days after your check hits?

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I realize what I’m about to say likely isn’t a good idea for you, but have you considered putting your spend in credit cards set to pay in full, and set the payment dates to fall a few days after your check hits?

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I have actually considered that. The other "safer" option I've thought about is having another checking account specifically for my fixed costs/ bills. Then transferring money over for debit cards purchases in the amounts budgeted for each month.

what is your goal? Are you trying to set a budget that you want to follow or do you want to track what you are currently doing?

It would take 10-15min to set up a decent one on your own in Excel for setting a budget. Start with your takehome paycheck amount. Multiply that by 2. That gives you your starting point for each month. Then start adding line items for each cost you want to budget for. Keep a running discretionary spending tally at the bottom to see how much non-allocated cash you have based on that budget.

Keep in mind you don't want to budget for every single dollar. The resolution of your categories can only get so detailed before the tool becomes too cumbersome to be useful.

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My biggest frustration with those programs is they wont factor in when I get paid vs when bills are due. I have everything auto-drafted (which perhaps that's a bad idea when you aren't great at budgeting). So yeah I have $X budgeted for entertainment or grocery. But the app doesn't understand I don't have that available all at once and doesn't consider when my bills are due vs when I get paid.

I also find it hard to consistently move money into savings because my last check of the month might need to cover my next month expenditures for the first week, depending on how the bi-weekly schedule falls.

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I should have kept reading. Sorry about that.

What you are describing is a bit tedious to deal with and there are not perfect solutions when dealing electronically.

The best way to simplify it is to work in a cash positive way. For me, I get paid biweekly. So I assume I get 2 paychecks per month. I ignore the 2 extra paychecks during the year. I then consider that cash my budget for the FOLLOWING month. I never depend on my current paychecks to cover my current bills. My July paychecks are to cover my payments that come due in August. I always have the cash before I spend it.

Getting spending under control and being able to monitor it easily and constantly can be difficult electronically. It might be a good idea to do the cash/envelope method for a few months so you can get a good handle on where you are having the most issues. at that point, try moving back to electronic commerce and you'll know where to focus more of your energy when it comes to regular tracking.

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Personal Capital's free dashboard has some cash flow analysis tools. I don't know that they have any predictive capabilities but they fully graph your historical cash flow for all time periods within your personal database on that site.

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I almost listed PC in my post but I find the cash flow aspects of the dashboard fairly limiting. It's pretty good at showing historical in the month relative to the prior month but it doesn't have a strong predictive capability. I think Excel is honestly his best solution if he wants to manage his cash flow to the day each month.

Your prior post about moving to a cash positive position is spot on. While 'riskier', credit cards are great in this respect because they create a ~30 day float on timing between when the purchase happens and when payment is due. As long as you pay your statement in full each month, credit cards only have benefits and should be leveraged.