First time using a budget

[Causalien]

Harp, we all have a sob story. I think most of us have told the story years ago or at one point in our life. With time, the need to tell it goes away. This is your time. Concerning being scared, it just means that it is your weak point. I can probably budget at the back of my head while riding my bike around town without feeling a thing at all like going to the grocery store buying milk. But most of the forum observed my scare-ready approach to installing a door when I came begging about what to do a few months ago. I am pretty sure you have skills that you are confident about.

This forum will criticize your methods, berate your sins and bicker amongst each other on the best way to get rich. One thing is for sure, if you stay and stomach the comments, you will get richer.

Now let's get you rich. Repeat after me. Ehbergerd! Budgeting is easy.

[CJOttawa]

...all we can afford is a condo here in Oakville...

See below.

Harp haven't you heard that 35 is the new 19?You have a long life ahead of you and sounds like you have many many changes in your life in a short period of time.I watch Gail all the time and some people owe $100,000+ and have nothing at all.
Condo in Oakville is nothing to put yourself down for ,you balanced a budget that is good news and you realised you needed to deal with it before getting out of control.

I *wish* I had a condo in Oakville! You're doing well - don't sweat it.

Seriously though, an antidote to fear is realizing "everything is difficult until it's easy."

Keep meticulous track of your spending and you'll see how the budget is working.
If things start diverging, (more spent on groceries than planned), you can rearrange in advance (cut from dining out & entertainment) before it puts a strain on your total finances (not enough in bank to pay for a scheduled bill).

Do that for a few months, staying diligent and you'll have confidence that the system you designed works. The fear will melt away.

[Square Root]

My daughter who is 28 and earns in the range of $45k per year came up to the cottage this past weekend. To my surprise she asked me if I would help her set up a budgetting system. I was very happy to do this and we set up a simple spreadsheet with maybe 10-15 expense categories and 3-5 income sources. Turns out she is saving almost half her income, no debt, will have the max TSFA by year end, and is DRIP'ing her small ($50k) portfolio of stock. i was proud of her.

[Harp]

My daughter who is 28 and earns in the range of $45k per year came up to the cottage this past weekend. To my surprise she asked me if I would help her set up a budgetting system. I was very happy to do this and we set up a simple spreadsheet with maybe 10-15 expense categories and 3-5 income sources. Turns out she is saving almost half her income, no debt, will have the max TSFA by year end, and is DRIP'ing her small ($50k) portfolio of stock. i was proud of her.

I honestly think that our schools should really teach this exact thing when kids are young and continue it through high school. They could very simply use The Wealthy Barber book as a course guide. If anyone has not read this, do yourself a favor and give it a read. Its awesome! I haven't had a chance to read the second book but can't wait to get my hands on it.

Like I said, I am 35 and there was nothing ever taught in school about budgeting, planning, etc. I assumed that living off credit like my parents did was the way to get what U wanted - I knew nothing else.

[the-royal-mail]

^ Agreed. I think one of the hindrances is that budgeting and organizing money and planning are not sexy. Even if you look at the CMF threads, count the number of thread starters that want to learn about these things and you will find they are far outnumbered by threads about investing, specuvesting, renting out condos and other such shell games and get rich quick schemes. My point is that I just don't see a lot of interest out there for these basics even though I 100% agree with you that they need to be taught at an early age and practiced and refined throughout one's life.

I regularly review my excel tracking sheet, establish simple checkpoints and try and meet or exceed the targets. This has provided me with a lot of power over my financial house and keeps me well prepared for life's events. Save first, then spend responsibly.

[Causalien]

^ Agreed. I think one of the hindrances is that budgeting and organizing money and planning are not sexy. Even if you look at the CMF threads, count the number of thread starters that want to learn about these things and you will find they are far outnumbered by threads about investing, specuvesting, renting out condos and other such shell games and get rich quick schemes. My point is that I just don't see a lot of interest out there for these basics even though I 100% agree with you that they need to be taught at an early age and practiced and refined throughout one's life.

I regularly review my excel tracking sheet, establish simple checkpoints and try and meet or exceed the targets. This has provided me with a lot of power over my financial house and keeps me well prepared for life's events. Save first, then spend responsibly.

That's funny, I always assumed that people who comes here already know and done budgeting to death and that's the reason why we are here. To discuss about investing and money management, because we are bored of the first step.

[brad]

Harp, this may already have been mentioned, but have you looked into the You Need a Budget model? Check it out at http://www.youneedabudget.com. They sell software that helps you implement the approach, but you can also do it yourself without the software: they provide (for free) a very readable online book that describes the method in 47 pages.

I like their approach, which involves living on last month's income and "giving every dollar a job." Even though I'm not big on budgeting myself I'm going to give their approach a try just as an experiment.