How to budget?

[pinkpotato]

Another thing that works for us is I post the breakdown of our monthly expenses (utilities, rent, car, food, etc) sa room / ref. Everytime na nakikita ko yung total amount, nawawalan na ko ng gana to buy things that I don't need.

like! parang magwowork din saken to! hahah

[kiz_me1109]

The way we set aside our Money for essential things changes because of technology. Before, we used the Envelope Method. We have an envelope with label for everything (SAVINGS, ELECTRICITY, ALLOWANCE, EDUCATION, INSURANCE, FOOD, EXTRA (TRAVEL, DINING, ETC), HOUSE RENT, ETC).

Labelled like this:

ex: (Meralco Monthly - 2k, Per Cut off - 1k)

Where do we get the amount? It's a fix amount depende sa pinakamataas na nabayaran namin last year. The reason why we do that is for us to monitor kung bumababa ba ang bill namin or hindi. So, kapag mas mababa sa 2k, we have extra money for that month.

Now, since mas madali nang online ang lahat, instead of envelope method, naka online na kami. We total everything na pwede bayaran online. We have 2 bank accounts (separate from our payroll). Kapag sweldo na, automatic na dineretso sa isang account. From there, we pay everything online na. The other account naman is for the Emergency Fund.

We have another separate account (not bank) for our savings, retirement and college fund for our son.

[simang]

Just last month, nagbago kami ng budget strategies. Before kasi, he handles all the money kasi he is honestly more financial savvy than I am. So just to mix things up ng konti, we tried a new budget system.

Major portion of his salary goes to expenses -- groceries, phone bill, car amort, gas, rent, electricity, etc.
He keeps a portion as his monthly allowance
My income goes to savings and other random expenses -- eating out, random buys, etc.

We use the app called YNAB (You Need A Budget). So far it's working well for us. I manage our YNAB account so I can see all our expenses down to the last centavo. Now that we're using the app, nakakaconscious na tuloy gumastos ng malaki. Haha!