2018 is somehow already drawing to a close, which, for me, means it’s time to start thinking of next year’s budget.
Aside from the bills (mortgage, utilities, food), I find my spending needs and desires split between a few categories:
- Child development (developmentally appropriate toys; classes)
- Our clothes, shoes, jackets (replacing our clothes that have bit the dust, or, for our daughter, sizing up/seasonal clothing)
- Hobbies (HEMA gear for Todd; games; baby carriers)
- Books (gotta build that library somehow)
- Household (we are down to one pot and one pan, which both, honestly need to gooo)
- Interior design (non-essential essentials—I guess you could say—that will improve our home through beauty, or because we have an actual need to, say, get a new couch)
That’s a lot of categories.
I have, unfortunately, picked up a habit from the way that I play The Sims, of wanting to do everything at once, just to get it all done, and not have to think about it anymore. However, real life doesn’t have a “motherlode” button (which you can type into the cheats panel and get 100k as many times as you type it in), so choices have to be made.
I have kept lists (which I love to write) of this things I want to do in each room of my house, and what clothes my meager wardrobe needs, since I got married nearly 5 year ago, and it used to be very difficult to turn down an item on sale that was on my list, despite not being the top priority. That’s where my mega list comes in.
At the end of 2017, I tried a new way of budgeting.
I wrote down everything I could think of us wanting to get in the next year, and then cut it down so it fit the amount we had allotted to spending money. Then I used colored pencils—red, orange, yellow, green—to prioritize what was to come first (red being asap, and green least urgent). From there, I arranged everything by paycheck. This took a little fiddling, because some items took more than one paycheck, and others could be put with one or two other things on the list.
The completed version played out what I prioritized the most, and showed me exactly where the money need to go to get everything we were planning on. This has been i n c r e d i b l y helpful, because, as before, there have been times where I’ve been tempted to get something else from the lists. But I can just look at the mega master budget, and see that there’s really no room to get whatever-it-is right now, or I can decide that the thing I want now will trump something on the list.
Either way, I know what I’m planning to buy, so I no longer have the issue of assuming I can get everything I have rolling around my mind, only to miss out on getting what I really needed later.
This process can seem daunting the first time, but I promise, you can get it done relatively quickly:
- Write down list of wants/needs (new items for kids, as they needs them, say a spring wardrobe; new shoes for you; home decor; whatever else you have a desire for)
- Look up or guesstimate prices, and decide what won’t be able to fit in your budget this year
- Highlight in (red, orange, yellow, green) each item according to it’s importance/priority to you
- Organize by category—which of the reds comes first? Got through the colors until you can place the last green
Congratulations! You now have an entire year budget for your spending money.
