Zero!
I am proud to say that I FINALLY have my budget set to zero. I set up my Google documents budget to take account of all my expenses and then subtracted that from my salary.
At first I put in the minimum on every account to see what the difference would be. I ended up having some money left over if I put down the minimum on each account so I put in some estimated figures for things like:
- Food
- Gas
- Electricity
based on the amounts I have spent over the last few months.
I then tweaked the expenses to put more than the minimum on each bill and increased the allowed amounts for irregular expenses. I also treated my savings like an expense because it is set up to be automatically transferred to a separate savings account in ING.
I did not include the income from the blog in my calculations because it is too irregular to predict. If I do get any income from the blog then it will be included at the end and will be a snowflake payment to be divided between credit cards and savings.
I am very pleased with the way the budget looks right now and realize that it will only take a few more minor tweaks in the future to keep it going.
I have payments set up in ING to go out automatically every month according to each bill. As my savings account grows larger it will be easier for me to make bigger snowflake payments as time goes by. I might even be able to do a large snowball payment and knock out a large amount of a debt at once.
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13 Responses to “Zero!”
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[...] the two cards I use on a regular basis (to earn cash back) get paid four times a month based on my budget for what is put on that card. I have an idea of what I put on each card and divide that by four and [...]
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[...] having a budget is that I can tweak it to fit different circumstances at different times. I set up a zero based budget where every dollar is accounted for and has a job to [...]
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[...] is also known as the zero based budget and it means that once you total the income and the ‘expenses’ the difference between [...]
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[...] have everything set up according to my zero based budget so that I don’t go over in any one area when it comes to paying a bill. Two days ago I logged [...]
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[...] and by using ING to manage my payments I can almost ensure that no bill is late. If you refer to my Zero Based Budget you will note that most bills are paid via credit card and then I use ING to pay off the card in [...]
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[...] and this came out of the Car Maintenance Fund in ING where I send money every month as part of my Zero Based Budget. The inspection itself cost $12.50 but there was an additional charge of $27.25 for an emissions [...]
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[...] know that this will put me over the figures for the month based on my zero based budget but it is really carry over money from last month. The beauty of budgeting is that I know that I [...]
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[...] simplified my budgets last year and tweaked my spending and created a zero based budget to the point where automating my finances made me [...]
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[...] went up. I have no idea why this happened because I did not change anything but I did reduce my zero based budget by $10 to account for this reduction in [...]
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[...] low levels. I got paid about $9 less than I usually get (due to the Tax Credit?) and so I adjusted my zero based budget down by $10 to make up for [...]
This is the typical scenario we are facing:
Cost of living going up.
Income stays the same, or is going down.
Credit card debt increasing.
House payment getting harder and harder (as well as other monthly outgoes)
The obvios solution is to cut down on expenses.
There is only so much you can cut down.
Therefore, you must target credit card debt (reduce it) and reduce your house payment.
You can do it on your own, through negotiation.
You can seek professional service.
I tried http://WWW.BORROWERDEFENSE.COM and it worked pretty good.
The more you delay doing it, the harder to fix. Better start sooner than latter.
Thak God there is still a solution.
I love the Zero Balance Budget concept so much I have created a FREE Web application that permits users to create monthly Zero Balance Budget, called BudgetSketch. We’re currently in a closed beta test but the public beta will launch later this month. Nonetheless, feel free to visit http://budgetsketch.com/signup to create a free account and poke around a bit. Also, send us your feedback via the embedded forms if you so desire.
Happy Budgeting!
Hmm. Zero Balance Budget is a new concept for me. I didn’t understand it fully
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