Help me budget | Imamother

amother

Thu, Apr 11 2019, 10:38 pm

Unfortunately, my husbands pay check is going to start being a little lower than usual for the next while. I’m not very good at budgeting and don’t know where to start. It seems that after all bills etc we have about 650 a week to spend. 120 of that goes to cleaning help which I can’t give up at this time. So that leaves a little over 500 for food and gas and other weekly expenses. Any advice how to make this work? I’m not always the most responsible spender.

amother

Green

Thu, Apr 11 2019, 10:52 pm

1) Make a meal plan. Include breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, Shabbos. Calculate approximately how much that food will cost.

2) Check how much you usually spend on gas.

3) If you don't have a large enough buffer for cleaning supplies and other minor expenses, see what you can replace in your food budget with something cheaper. (I.e. switch meat for chicken, cereal for oatmeal, fish for eggs) and see if that makes it work.

4) Stick to your budget.

Amarante

Fri, Apr 12 2019, 2:26 am

You need to divide discretionary expenses from non-discretionary expenses.

For example, gas is probably non-discretionary unless you do a lot of pleasure driving. However, depending on what you use the car for, you can consolidate shopping trips or other excursions.

Be honest about your expenses - you say "after bill are paid" - that still leaves most people with expenses that need to be paid such as drugs; medical co-payments and a certain amount of miscellaneous expenses that seem to happen - e.g. you don't need a oil change every week but every week/month, there are gong to be non-on going things that pop up.

In terms of food, as others have posted, you need to be organized and have a meal plan. There are ways to minimize food expenses - in terms of produce, buy only what is on sale and seasonal so in the winter, apples, pears, oranges and tangerines are generally on sale as are winter squashes. Oatmeal (not not individual packages) is inexpensive and healthy. Obviously no prepared or take out food as that is a luxury - but even that can be tweaked - premade pizza crusts are inexpensive and pizza then becomes a relatively inexpensive item - much cheaper than frozen or takeout.

baby12x

Fri, Apr 12 2019, 3:29 am

Take it out in cash for the first few weeks Nd ONLY spend what cash you have. If you run out, dont but anything else. Make it work with things you have in your house. After a little while, you will get used to it and you will barely notice.
Another idea is to go bare-bones. Buy only the cheapest and simplest of everything. Then slowly add in what you have money for.