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Make a Budget

Finance

DSC02103
Image by r.lovewell via Flickr

In the past, I’ve gone through a detailed series of budget lessons demonstrating how to make a budget and showing my personal budget spreadsheet template.  If you weren’t here to see them develop, you probably haven’t seen them at all.    I’ve never built an actual index for those posts.

This is the master index of my budget planning resources.  As I develop more, this will grow.

Budget Lesson #1 – In this lesson, I go over how we handle discretionary income and I explain our modified envelope system.   The discretionary budget contains things like our grocery bill, or the clothes we buy.  We have near-total discretion over what is purchased, hence the name.

Budget Lesson #2 – Lesson #2 contains the details of our monthly bills.  These are the ones that are consistent, predictable, and actually due each month.  Most people take these for granted as the bills they have to pay, but it’s not true.   You can get almost all of your regular bills reduced just by asking.   You would also be surprised what you can do without, when properly motivated.

Budget Lesson #3 – This is where I explain how we deal with the non-monthly bills.  That is, the bills that have to be paid, but are not due on a monthly basis.  I also share the personal budget spreadsheet template I developed.   I am working on a few sample templates to match various imaginary scenarios.  If you’d like to be an anonymous case study, and get free help setting up a budget, let me know, please.

Budget Lesson #4 – In this lesson, I describe our “set-aside” funds for things that will need to be paid eventually, but not on a set schedule.  Sometimes, they are never actually due.   We set aside money for the parties we throw, for car repairs and for a number of other things.  A few of these items are outright optional, but they are part of what makes life fun.  You can’t make a budget without including some of the extras.

Budget Lesson #5 – This is the companion piece to lesson 2.   Learn how I’ve reduced–or attempted to reduce–each of these bills.   For the better part of two years, I called Dish Network every few months to ask for a discount.  For almost 2 years, it was granted.  Then one, day, they told me they were putting a note on our account to keep us from getting any more discounts, so I canceled.   100% discounts help us save more.

Budget Lesson #6 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 3.  These bills are harder to reduce.  Have you ever successfully gotten your property taxes lowered?

Budget Lesson #7 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 4.  Notice a pattern, yet?

Budget Lesson #8 – Here, completely out of order, is the reduction companion to lesson 1.   Watch as I magically reduce–or rationalize–our discretionary budget.

So, dear readers, what part of budgeting should I address next?

Sunday Roundup: Diet Redux

Misc

Emergency "Twitter was down so I wrote my...
Image via Wikipedia

I had total diet fail last month.

From April to May, across 4 consecutive weekends, I put a bit over 1500 miles on my car on 4 separate trips.  That is something like 10 times my average mileage.

That’s a lot of driving, squeezed around a regular schedule of work.   Have you ever tried a drive through for low-carb food?   Because of that, and the circumstances of some of my trips, I abandoned my diet on those weekends.   Funeral food is rarely low-carb.

By the time those trips were over, I had spent so much time off my diet that “What’s one more sandwich?” became an easy justification.  There is a reason I don’t break the rules I give myself.  I can’t seem to cheat just once.  Once I cross that line, it’s over.

So, instead of cheating on my diet and feeling guilty, I officially dropped it for most of the month of May.  I decided it would be easier to get it out of my system than to continue worrying about it.

May’s over, and I’m back on the Slow Carb diet.  My little fail cost me 7 pounds and 6.5 total inches(waist , hips, biceps, and thighs).  I’m reasonably sure that most of that is water and will evaporate before next weekend.

Best Posts

My goal is to live my life so that I have no regrets at the end of it.  That means pursuing my dreams and doing the things I love.

It’s easier to do the things I love when my life isn’t weighed down by the crap I don’t need.

Sweating the Big Stuff wrote a killer post on saving money simply by asking.  Often, the easy things work.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Shopping Online: The Money-Saving Secret was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Money Problems: Paying Off Debt was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

5 Ways to Help Your Friends Stay Out of Debt was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.

Should Pupils Focus on Personal Finance was included in the Yakezie Carnival.

 

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

 

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Sunday Roundup: Ice Fishing

Misc

Ice Fishing in Portland, Maine
Image by Captain Kimo via Flickr

Update: Something wonky’s happening with this post.  If you’re seeing it in your reader again, just ignore it.

Twenty years ago, my grandparents were living in Arizona.   They went to see Grumpy Old Men in the theater and, during an ice-fishing scene, they overheard the people next to them talking about how impossible it was.  You can’t walk on the ice, let alone drive there!   Naturally, my grandparents corrected them.

For the uninitiated, in the land of 10,000 frozen lakes, ice fishing is an actual pastime.   The ice on a lake can reach 36 inches, which is more than enough to drive on by 24 inches.    Ice-fishing aficionados will drill a hole through that frozen mess, drop a line through the hole and find dinner.    Last night, I went ice fishing for the first time in at least 10 years, probably 15.    On the lake we were on, they actually plow roads across the ice.   It sounds cold, but we were in a 20-foot fish house with a generator, a couch, and a TV.  The neatest thing was the underwater radar thingy that turns ice-fishing into a video game.

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to establish the Slow Carb Diet as a habit.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 29 pounds since January 2nd!   That’s 4 pounds since last week.  13 more to meet my goal for February.

Total Inches: I have lost 15 inches in the same time frame, down 1 since last week.

Best Posts

Thinkgeek has a new high-protein, low-carb snack.  Did you know that toasted ants taste like bacon?  I’m far more tempted than I should be.

On the off chance that somebody has missed the memo over the years, tax protesting–the art of ignoring your taxes because you don’t like them–will not end well for you.

I’ve been fighting an urge to get a Kindle.  Over the last few weeks, the itch has been getting harder to ignore.  Money Crashers has a list of resources for free ebooks, making the itch that much worse.

That’s two posts on spending money.  Here’s one to balance that with making money.   Do you know the best time to post an eBay auction?

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

Have you ever participated in a financial binge & purge?  Budgeting and planning can help you avoid the purge, but you’ll have to forgo most of the binges.

Everybody gets caught by life’s ups and downs occasionally.  When that happens, how can you fix the damage to your budget and finances?

Finally, I explained my plan for shopping quickly.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Brown Bagging Your Way to Savings was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Debt Burnout was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Sunday Roundup: Home Depot and Your Kids

Misc

Logo for The Home Depot. Category:Brands of th...
Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I took my girls to Home Depot.  On the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a workshop for kids that gives kids a chance to make a small craft project with a parent.  For free.  This month was race cars.   My girls look forward to it all month.

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set.  I’m recording each session in a spreadsheet.  As of this writing, I am up to 26 in a set, doing about 90 per twice-daily session.  I’m expecting to do more tonight(Saturday) as I’m currently taking a 24 hour break to let my muscles heal a bit.  By previous experience, I’m guessing I’ll hit 30-35 in the morning.

Weight Loss Update

I am on the Slow Carb Diet.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 35 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 2 pounds since last week, meaning I missed my February goal by 7 pounds.   I added some cheese back into my diet, to see if it hurt.  It did.   Research showed that dairy inhibits the insulin response, make dairy a bad thing for a diet entirely out of proportion to its glycemic index.

Total Inches: I have lost 19.5  inches in the same time frame, down 2.5 inches since last week.

Best Posts

Lifehacker ran a post on simple ways to make money online. They may not all pay well, but the poorly-paid tasks are something you can do while watching TV.

Finally! A post explaining the exact connection between autism and vaccinations.

I’d love to see free-market healthcare given a chance, just once.  We’d never go back.

Going to college, try some of these scholarships.

Most observant people realize that TSA is a joke.  For those who didn’t realize that, TSA admitted it, too.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

This week last year, I wrote a post about doing 100 push-ups in a single set.  Is it a coincidence that I’m trying again a year later?

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Money Problems – Day 3: What’s Coming In? was included in the Festival of Frugality.

5 Reasons Why I Splurge On Travel was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Ignore Your Budget was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Money Problems – Day 1: Setting Goals

Finance

Today, I am starting a series, Money Problems: 30 Days to Perfect Finances.   The series will consist of 30 things you can do in one setting to perfect your finances.  It’s not a system to magically make your debt disappear.  Instead, it is a path to understanding where you are, where you want to be, and–most importantly–how to bridge the gap.

I’m not going to run the series in 30 consecutive days.  That’s not my schedule.  Also, I think that talking about the same thing for 30 days straight will bore both of us.   Instead, it will run roughly once a week.  To make sure you don’t miss a post, please take a moment to subscribe, either by email or rss.

In this, the first installment, we’re going to talk about goals.

First, we’re going to ask 3 questions.

  1. What is your financial goal?
  2. Why?
  3. How can you get there?

The first question is “What is your goal?” Of course, in this series, on this site, we’re only going to be addressing your financial goals.  Losing 300 pounds, growing wings, and flying to the moon may be an admirable goal, but it’s considerably outside of the scope of this project.

So, what is your financial goal?  Do you want to retire a millionaire, or become financially independent?  Do you want to pay off your debt, or save enough money to see the world?  Do you want to learn how to retire by 40?

Your goal does not matter…to anyone but you.  To you, though, it is terribly important.  Without a goal, how can you measure you progress and see what you have accomplished?  It’s easy to get frustrated and give up when you can’t look back and see what successes you have actually accumulated.

Whatever your goal, you have to do two things:

  1. Don’t let anyone tell you it is stupid or impossible.    There is a quote that I can’t find attribution for, other than as an old Chinese proverb: “Those that say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those doing it.”
  2. Write it down and hang it up.  This lets you see your goal every day.  It will be impossible to forget and difficult to ignore.  I have Dave Ramsey‘s Baby Steps hanging on my refrigerator where I see it a dozen times per day.

The second major question to ask yourself is “Why?”  Why is this goal important to you?  Why do you care?

If you can’t answer that, it’s time to sit back and think about it for a while.  Without a solid reason to succeed, you’ll lose motivation and fail.   Are you getting out of debt to give yourself a secure retirement?  Do you want to save to travel the world because you’ve been dreaming about it since you were in diapers?  Do you simply want to provide a secure future for your family?   Whatever your reason, it is–and should be–uniquely yours.

The third and final question is “How can you make it happen?”  That question has an extremely simple answer: read the rest of the series.

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Saturday Roundup

Life

I’ve spend the last 10 days at home with my two youngest kids.   It’s been a lot of fun.   It’s amazing watching them interact with each other and seeing how their imaginations works.   It’s also been a helpful reminder that, if I don’t turn on the TV, they will happily find something else to do.

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to establish the Slow Carb Diet as a habit.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my belly, waist, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 11 pounds since January 2nd.  This is crazy.  At least part of this has to be due to the natural swing of up to 5 pounds from day to day, and part of it is due to the fact that I was wearing jeans when I weighed in the first time and cotton pajamas this morning.  From now on, this is going to be the first thing I do on Saturday mornings, so everything is as consistent as possible.  Another factor is that I’ve cut most of the crap out of my diet for a week.  My body has been flushing garbage.  But dang!  11 pounds in a week.  I’m a bit excited.

Total Inches: I have lost 5.5 inches in the same time frame.  This is proof that it’s not just water that I lost, which is where first, dramatic losses usually originate in a diet.

The loss seems a little bit nuts.   Here’s hoping it stays consistent.

Best Posts

Your retirement account shouldn’t be an optional investment.   Do you know how to maximize retirement savings?

I’m a big fan of making extra money.   Money Crashers lists 6 sites to help you rake in the cash, without needing any special skills.

Unclutterer is giving away three Fujitsu Scansnaps.   I want one of these is a way that isn’t quite right.

I’ve been moving to LED lights instead of CFLs for a few years.  CFLs make lousy security lights in Minnesota in the winter.  They take 5 minutes to get to full brightness when it’s cold.  LEDs last forever.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote one year ago.

I posted about the difference between bribes and rewards and the problems inherent in trying to buy good behavior.

Lesson 2 of my budget series went live, detailing my monthly bills.

We made some changes to our budget plans that haven’t worked very well.   Over the course of the last year, every one of these ideas has either been partially or totally abandoned, but it’s working for us.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

How to Complain – The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

3 Things You Need to Know About Homeowner’s Insurance was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

That’s all for today.   Have a great weekend!