We tried a true "budget" where we allocated a fixed dollar amount to various categories, such as X to groceries, but found that never worked. We ended up having a total dollar amount per month we could spend and tracking every single expense in a spreadsheet allocated to categories. Using formulas, it's easy to see how much of the total we should be at on any given day in the month (e.g., we set $2,000 and one-quarter of the way through the month we should be around $500 spent). For larger recurring expenses, those are split evenly across the number of days, and the spreadsheet shows the total up to that day (e.g., car repair of $200 and one-quarter of the way through the month the expense incurred is $50). This setup also allows us to compare category expenses month to month.
Statistics: Posted by 847 — Thu Oct 30, 2025 10:06 pm — Replies 59 — Views 8288