New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year!  

So, obviously it's the start of a new year which means the start of a new budgeting year.  So, if you tracked your spending last year, now is the time to look at some yearly comparisons. (It doesn't matter if you didn't track your spending the whole year, just use what you have.).  

Some simple comparisons that I did are that I added up the actual spending in each category and the budget in each category.  Then I subtracted the two to find out how I did on a large basis at estimating my monthly spending in each category.  Next, I divided my actual spending by the number of months I tracked my spending (in my case 8).  This gives me a monthly spending total in each category.   These are then used to make the new budget, with revisions if there was unusual spending.  For example, we had cable for 6 months in 2011 but we cancelled it so I would take that out of my monthly budget for 2012.

BUT, before you make up your budget for 2012 the most important thing to do is sit down with your family (if you have one) and come up with what you want to do this year with your money (a yearly goals type thing).  For example, do you have debt you want to pay off, do you want to make a major purchase like a house or car, do you want to go on a holiday, how much do you want to spend on birthdays, how much do you want to spend on 2012 Christmas, etc.  You see there is no reason to make a budget to just track spending.  That is a whole lot of work for nothing.  If you make a budget to reach your monetary goals that otherwise seemed out of reach without going into debt, that is a whole different story.

Then write your budget and stick to it and see your goals, hopefully, come to pass.

Next time I'll write about some of the categories I have in my budget, if you are starting a new budget.