How Do You Manage Your Personal Budget?

[Watchman]

Since cash is a resource and must be preserved as best can be, how do you manage your personal budget? What are the techniques you use, the "system", do you have to juggle? All ideas here on managing this precious resource will be appreciated and maybe used by others. Don't be bashful.

[Toepopper]

For me, managing the budget is a constant battle between my wife and I. She spends money like it is water and has no idea of what it takes to save a buck , nor does she care. I am the frugal one who shops for deals on food supplies and fuel etc. After retireing our income has dropped off considerably so it is up to me to moniter where every penny goes. I consider it a failure if we don't save something every month, even $20 is better than saving nothing. Property taxes and insurance are our two biggest bills and I set aside $200 a month for each of these. We have never used the homeowners insurance or filed a claim on the auto insurance so all of that money goes for nothing and every year the amount goes up. I save $35 a month for solar upkeep and equipment, $100 a month for tires/auto parts and mechanical expenses, $100 a month for ammunition/guns, $100 a month for propane and firewood, since I am too old to get enough firewood on my own, $100 a month for my batallion reunion. Food expenses vary from month to month depending on if I buy items to stockpile. Thats it other than gasoline, the phone bill and power which gets paid out of my pocket. I have my own water supply so no water bill to pay.

[Watchman]

We began building our food supply about 13 years ago -- and with few exceptions, bought everything on sale. First we made a "provisions" list of food, medical, personal, cleaning - and every time we stocked up to strength on one of the items, we crossed it off the list. Now that our storehouse is complete, the only food expense we might have is to replace something on our inventory. I have two properties to pay taxes on, so that runs about $200 a month; auto and homeowner insurance runs about $100 a month; emergency cash about $100 a month; petty cash (my wife the banker) about $300 a month; gasoline about $35 a month; electricity (two buildings) about $75 a month; natural gas $50 a month; city services (trash, water, sewage) $65 a month; phone service (cell and land) $85 a month; tithe 10%; silver $200; and lastly, our only form of entertainment (other than me telling jokes that my wife does not find funny sometimes) our TV DVD collection. We have no cable TV. Oh, about $100 a month total for birthdays - we do not celebrate Christmas as the big boxes say we should - we don't give Chinese goods - we send something special for each of our grand-kids and their parents on their birthdays. We space our spending orgasm out over the year rather than waste it on one frantic shot in December. We reserve December 25th for worship. There are some yearly things that we do, like $70 to the USFS for ten woodcutting permits. We (I admit it) go out for Chinese food about once a month or every other, which amounts to about $200 a year. Other than that we're in good shape. Oh, one thing I forgot - internet service about $55 a month; yearly hosting fees for three web pages that I maintain (including this one) about $300. Books, oh damn, we both read voraciously and spend about $25 a month on used books, which we turn back in for credit. No [Wash My Mouth] sodas, no pizzas (we make our own - learned this skill from five years in Italy), eat a lot of fruit, can a lot of vegetables and meat - we do eat deer and antelope that our grandson harvests and some big lake trout once in a while.

We strictly rotate food and other supplies and our motto is "save the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves".

[fern]

Stretching money is always a tough area for me. Like our new member, I am trying to rid myself of years of collection from kids that moved into their own lives and past work projects. Therefore, I am still paying for a storage unit. I found a place half the price of all the other units within a 15 mile area but it still costs dinero. That irks me every month as I pay it. We are out of debt (yay!) and only use cash. That streamlined a lot of misc spending quickly. I am addicted to 7/11 coffee but I have travel mugs that I wash and take. Therefore I pay the refill price each day but it still adds up to $28 per month that has nothing to show for it except for me smiling. We have no choice in phone/internet/cable (yes, I have cable for the first time in years) but that is because it was cheaper to get all 3 items together than just the phone and internet. I totally dislike comcast and their price is very high at $147 per month. If I drop cable it goes to almost $200. Errrr. We have 19 properties and I put $250 away each month for our taxes. I guess taxes are still cheaper here than where you two are...which I find amazing. PA has high taxes compared to the other mid atlantic states. Our utilities are on budget...$64 for gas, $62 for power, water runs about $44 every 3 months. The town put in new sewer mains and extensions in so our sewer bill has jumped to $200 every 3 months. That was a wowwy. I have not saved for emergencies or upkeep and address them as they come simply because I put every spare penny into buying what we are going to need food wise along with a long list of other items including silver and (I wish) gold. Our vehicles are older and mine have very high mileage. I just keep them maintained and change the oil every 3000 miles. Seems to keep them going strong. Where I lose money like running water is kids and grandkids that are struggling. I truly do not know how to budget for that! One expense that is costly every month is supplements including silver. I have been trying to purchase all supplements by the case now...one per month so I can start building up my supply but that can be a big number depending on the product. Since I lost my garden...I will be spending a lot more than norm on food for the next year plus driving into the city to purchase. That will be a pain. We do invest in half a cow and half a pig each year with Amish friends. We can't even eat all of that in a year so I have plenty of meat to share with the kids. It is so much less expensive than buying meat at a store and tastes lots better. We currently get our eggs from them and some other stuff that I am not going to write about. No need bringing troubles down on innocent folks. If you have a large enough freezer, I recommend buying meat this way. This is the 3rd year of my life that I have not had chickens so we often get those from them too. I may have to see if they have too much of anything from their garden that I can take off their hands. We support my Mom and stepfather too. We own their home but we have their utilities to pay and food. Their social security, although they both worked all their lives, is not enough to sustain them for more than two weeks. LG assists in supporting gram and grandpa and I am pretty darn proud of him for that. He just covered the repairs on their vehicle and it wasn't cheap. Like Toepopper, we seem to pay a certain amount of money to our local "you know what" store...covering defense items and try to hit the shows when they are in the area.

Currently I have stopped purchasing my monthly prepping items because I am putting all excess funds into the properties we own so I can get them all on the market. I hope to have all of them completed (and sold?) by January so any leftovers can hit the very early spring market. Now I just pray there still is a strong spring market in this area.

I am putting some money away each month because I want another old pickup and hope to have enough that I can purchase it when I find it. If anyone knows of a 198? ford f250 diesel in fairly good condition in January...please let me know. AND...almost forgot...I have started a slush fund for solar panels and batteries and a wind turbine. It is going a bit more slowly but I put out jars that I drop all my change in every night. Have one per room and in 2 months I have some pennies over $223! That is a lot of change! Got that much rolled and stashed and plan on doing that every month. I encourage anyone that visit to lighten their weight by adding to the jar!

Utilities at all our other properties are minimal...approx $25 per month per. One more reason to get them sold asap...and move on to where we truly want to be. I did not have to pay that until I moved all the tenants out so I could prep and list them. Everything I have listed here adds up quickly and I am surprised monthly as how "not" far our money goes. We are paid once a month too so I must always budget to carry us throughout. My much better half does not get involved other than an occasional...I want us to get this or that...meaning it is my job to ensure it happens. Always fun!