So easy to download a spreadsheet budget. Has all categories for spending and does the math for you. It's a must imo
I created my own excell spreadsheet for my budget.
The one issue most always fall into, and I did myself until I started this a few years ago, is they see a balance in their accounts and try to figure out what goes to what, and how much money do you actually have to blow on whatever.
I established three separate and distinct accounts with their own pots of money.
1. All 'bills' account where all my bills are auto paid. $$ is auto transferred after every pay and built it up to where it can carry 6 months of every reocurring bill I have. In reality, it would go longer as if crap hits the fan I would cancel some things and that $$ would go further.
2. My money. Essentially my day to day expenses. Gas/Food/Fun, etc.
3. Future stuff. Right now it has 17 diff categories to cover everything from vacation, new car, roof, hvac, car repairs, emergency house repairs, concert/sport tickets, medical, home improvement, etc etc etc. I have assigned each category a % so when I transfer $$ into that account every pay period it auto populates with the new balance. Every qtr or so I review the %'s i have and see if I want to adjust those in any fashion.
It has helped me TREMENDOUSLY to be able to save for future plans, whatever they may be. When I reach goals of what something would cost then I lower that % to a bare min and add % to other aspects I want to save more money on.
It is just been a terrific way for me to know what $$$ is allocated to what instead of just winging it. When I got my new furnace a few years ago after getting to my goal/estimate, I started at a low % again knowing it should be (hopefully) 20+ years before I have to ever get a new one so in the meantime $$ will keep accuring. If I repairs on it, then it comes from the emergency repairs allocation.
I wont say this is genius, but to me it has been genius and helps keep me on task. I have shared it with a few younglings in my downtrace and a few weeks ago they reached out and stated it has been working great and now they finally have been able to afford a down payment on a house because of the savings and allocation process I showed them.