Brushes & Budgets

There’s one sure thing in life. If you’re born, you’re going to die and probably pay taxes while you wait. Now that we started things on a positive note…I’ll jump right into today’s topic.

Food, gas, and miscellaneous spending catches us all off guard, sometimes you’re never sure how much is too much. Maybe you go out to eat every few days. Maybe you go to Starbucks for coffee every day. Maybe you think you don’t spend much money every month. If you don’t keep track of what you’re spending on these 3 expenses…you’re more than likely spending more than you think you are.

FOOD

Currently, my food budget is set to $200 for 2 weeks at a time, coming up to $400 a month. This $200 includes going out to eat. While I enjoy spending time eating food with friends, I also will sometimes forego functions depending on how much it may cost me.

How did I come up with that number? Well…in the beginning, my food budget was $60, then $80, then $120. It kept going up and up and up and up. I decided it was better for me to really evaluate what was going on instead of constantly going over budget. This amount seems to be reasonable as long as I really stick to cooking primarily at home and I don’t eat out more than 1-2 times a week.

If you would like to find out how much you spend on food, take a look at your last three statements, and sort them kind of like how you sort laundry. I know that’s not fun, but I have a point. Sort your grocery items and the restaurants you’ve visited then add them up separately…then together. Then maybe even average them out. This will help you understand how much you spend on food in a month. If this is an outlandish amount, (I think I was spending $400 a month eating out at one point) the hard part is, cutting down on restaurant eating even though it’s really convenient. If you can agree to eating at a restaurant 1-2 times a week and cook the rest of your meals at home, I can guarantee you will find some extra money in your budget. One thing to keep in mind, is you don’t have to sacrifice quality. You just have to be a bit more strategic and use apps like Ibotta, coupons.com, use grocery store apps for additional savings/coupons, or visit Aldi instead of the more expensive grocery stores.

GAS

As for gas, I don’t know about anyone else, but I know my car has a 14 gallon tank for gas. If I have the capability to work from home, I can get away with not filling up my car for 2 weeks. If I go in to work every day, it’s likely I’ll have to buy gas once a week. I use this to help me gauge how much I’ll spend for gas. I normally fill up before I hit the quarter tank mark. My gas budget is $75 and I’m usually under budget depending on the cost of gas and how much I hit the streets that pay period. Take a look at your previous purchases and that should help you decide how much would be reasonable for your budget. Apps like Upside help with your gas purchases by paying rewards per gallon. You can cash in those rewards whenever you’d like!

MISCELLANEOUS

Finally miscellaneous. Miscellaneous for me, is everything that’s not food nor gas. If I need household items…miscellaneous. Personal care items like shampoo and conditioner…miscellaneous. These are items I don’t purchase regularly, but I like to keep stocked so I don’t run out. There’s nothing like being in the shower and running out of body wash. I don’t have kids and I don’t have pets, you budget may need to separate out your miscellaneous and create a category for your children and/or fur babies separately from everything else if that helps. Your miscellaneous budget can be broken down any way you need it to be. My miscellaneous budget is set at $100 every pay period. This amount is usually plenty depending on what I need to use it for.

To keep everything organized, I use a spreadsheet to keep myself aware of my spending every pay period. Every purchase I make, I add it to the spreadsheet and include the type of transaction and payment method I used to keep myself from going over. The beauty of personal finance is, you can set modify it to your needs!

That’s all I have for today! I look forward to picking up another topic tomorrow.

Photo Credit: https://www.moneykey.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-fixed-variable-expense/