Itemizing the Wedding Budget

I’ve decided to update my sidebar to include a specific target for my wedding fund. I assigned a pretty arbitrary number as my goal… and my total wedding costs will far exceed $9,385, but it helps me to break down my goals a bit, and I decided I could itemize that amount, so it will motivate me to contribute more money. I researched on theknot.com and several other non-pf-friendly websites to get these estimates, so I may be able to do better than this on all of these, but I figure I will keep them aggressive for now, until I actually get further down the road, and actually start talking marriage with the Guy, let alone laying out our budget.

The Itemized Wedding Specific Goals:
Personal Training for one year: $1,000 budget (certainly not a wedding essential, but this has always been a dream of mine to do, and wedding's probably as acceptable an excuse as I'll ever get!)
Dress incl. alteration costs: $4,500
Save the Date Cards: $400
Wedding Invitations: $1,625 (based on 6.50 per card for 250 people)
Postage: $310 (based on save-date, invites & reply cards for 250)
Wedding Cake: $2,000 (based on $8 per slice for 250)
SO FAR: $9,835

In the future, I will take on thinking about costs for: Photographer, Flowers, Wedding Party Gifts, Favors, Venue, bridal accessories, hotel rooms for wedding prep, wedding food & Open Bar, band cost… so much more to think about…and such a ways to go with the savings! Good thing we're a long ways off!

How do you set a budget when you *technically* have no income?

So, I know I need to set a new, realistic budget for when I'm in school. A lot of things will be different. The main one = no income.

So how do you set a budget when you don’t have any money coming in? A lot of financial aid and federal loans will cover a good deal of the straight tuition part of my expenses. But then I expect I will also have one big lump of funds from loans I take out. I will still need a budget so I prevent myself from burning through all of my loan money too quickly, but I know it’s going to look and feel a lot differently than my current financial planning. A couple of the different dynamics to note:

One, I won’t be amassing savings – so I will need to stop all automatic deductions for my current accounts and maintain only my cash-value life insurance and my Roth from my loan money.

Two, very limited capital - there is a limited amount of loans I can take out, as restricted by the “Student Budget” that Stanford has calculated. I won’t be able to take out any more money than they have determined it costs. For me, that total is $53,000 for each year, of which, $28,000 has to be devoted to school costs and $25,000 is for everything else. I literally can’t spend beyond $25,000 each year, or I will have to dip into my paltry savings or incur – gasp – credit card debt.

Three, invisible expenses - there are a lot of “mandatory” items that are not included in that student budget – like, flights for all of the job interviews and all of the special study trips that you HAVE to take advantage of – otherwise, why go to school full-time?

Four, extreme temptation- I think it is going to be hard to stay in the mode of reducing expenses or keeping expenses low, because business school is this very finite period of time when you are going to be surrounded by the most amazing set of people and experiences yet. Who wants to think about keeping to the bare necessities as the backdrop for THAT? Any tips?

How to Plan for Pre-School Expenses

So, as I’m getting more and more excited about school and getting buried in the difficult decision about which coast I’m going to head towards, I’m also realizing that there will be a LOT of expenses even before I grab up the loans and go into debt. I guess I could throw up my hands and say “Oh well, it’s all going to be negative pretty soon anyway,” but I am promising myself that I WON’T have that mentality. I have plenty of negative networth role models out there that have maintained responsible personal finance

I’m also dealing with the not exactly unexpected, but still rather unpredictable expenses associated with enrolling - $25 processing fee for financial aid with the CSS profile, $1,000 deposit due in March, $350 flights out for admit weekend, $300 for hotels at two weekends, required pre-reading and courses, and probably tons of other stuff I’m not thinking of!

For now, I’m trying to keep spending down in every other area I can control, knowing that lots more is going to pop up. I also added a budget line item called “Unexpected”. Any other budgeting techniques for unexpected expenses??

Holiday Gift-Giving Budget Plan

My strategy for keeping my holiday gift giving low has been three-fold.

Making a list of everyone to whom you really want to give a gift – For me this year, it will just be my immediate family, the Guy, and two of my close friends. My extended family does exchange names, so I won’t find out about that extra gift until we draw at Thanksgiving. I would also love to give a gift to my grandparents and potentially The Guy’s parents, so if I see something that is just the perfect fit, I will probably splurge for that as well. The Guy and I will probably go in together for something small for the two couples we’re close with.

Stagger a buying plan. My strategy is usually to use my credit card rewards points to redeem for gift cards so I can supplement my usual holiday buying budget. This year I had earned more than I thought on the two credit cards I use only seldom (my main card is the Starwoods Amex which I save for hotels and travel). I’ve already redeemed a $100 gift card which I’ll use for the Guy and I have about $50 left to redeem for my friends and family. I’m going to try to buy lots of fun, unique presents in Argentina as well… I wish I had more skills that I could make more of my presents. Stories or poems would be all I’d have to offer. I will probably burn a few mixes for my Mom since she always loves the CD’s I make her. But I wish I had more ideas….

Make/Buy a few reserve gifts for the unexpected burdens of reciprocity. There are always a few unexpected gifts, from coworkers or more removed friends that you want to have something ready for. I think that holiday baking is going to be my main recourse here. I could buy a few Christmas ornaments.... Otherwise, I’m still looking for another shelf stable option to have handy so I won’t be caught in that embarrassing “oh, I left your gift in the car” moment.

Expense Tracking Enlightenment

Whew, I’ve been behind on posting due to some travel (stayed in a cabin and went fishing up north in Minnesota: so not me but really fun!) and some training at work (on influencing people and innovation). So far, just a headline that I’m participating in Poorer than You’s Know-Where-the-Money-Goes Challenge for the month of August. Barely halfway there, and I’ve been surprised at how enlightening and non-invasive the tracking process has been. As minor as it seems, it helped me to start on August 1. Psychologically, it’s been an issue for me when I’ve tried to track spending before – where to begin? The spending is a constantly flowing stream. I highly recommend trying it for a month, and if it helps you, starting on the first day of the month. It has kept me feeling a lot more aware and cognizant of how I’m spending.
It’s definitely been enlightening to some bad behaviors (Wow, two days in, I had spent two-weeks-worth of my eating-out allocation) and helped instill some good behaviors (Day 3, I declined a morning brunch with friends that I normally would have tagged along on unthinkingly spending another $20 on eggs and toast that I could have made for free at home). I’ve also been spending more deliberately, and prioritizing as I go. Hopefully this is the month that I WIN on my budget. And I need it to fund that travel budget – my trip is at the end of November!

End of July Wrap-Up and August Goal: Budget Itemization

I’ve updated my July net worth – woohoo, +7% to $41,600. Most of this was my end of year bonus. I also took down the estimated value of my car from $9,000 to $7,000. It’s probably still a little high, especially in these anti-SUV times, so I’ll keep recognizing the depreciation over the next few months. Spending-wise, I blew it a bit with my friend’s visit at the end of the month. Otherwise, I think I would have come in at my budget. As it is I’m quite a bit over.

As for August goals – there’s just one – Budget Itemization! Seven sexy syllables that I’m going to be immersed in for the next few hours and committed to for the rest of the month. I’m trying out a bit of a budget rehaul:

1) I have committed to trying the “envelope” style budgeting for one category: eating and drinking out at restaurants. This is the one category where I always overspend and I think actually seeing the money disappear will help out a lot with reigning in spending.
2) I’m also going to work on a WEEKLY budget for restaurants - $50 a week (that includes everything from food to drinks to coffees out.
3) Next, I’m going to get really detailed about my current budget categories. Instead of “entertainment,” I’m going to start itemizing movies vs. books, etc. That way in the next few months I’ll have even more new information about how to save smart.

All in all, I have a pretty positive attitude about my financial outlook for the rest of the year. I’m getting better at least! Also, the Guy and I were thisclose to scoring free tickets to Lollapalooza in Chicago this weekend. We didn’t win them, which may have been a financial blessing considering all of the gas and expenses we’d have incurred to go. Still… it would have been fun.

I am not so good at budgeting.

The All-Star break is here…and time for a bit of reality. I just crunched the numbers for June, and I was $350 over the budget I set. Shiza. I’m going to try to wrap up July on budget. Here’s what I’ll have to do to get there:

• Not buy groceries for the rest of the month (to make up for how overbudget I went on clothing). Shouldn’t be too hard since I have plenty in the fridge and still have 4 big recipes I want to make.
• $100 left for eating out and drinking (I have a friend coming in at the end of the month so that might be tough, but I definitely need to get more disciplined about this.)
• Fill up the tank only one more time this month. I have half of a tank now so I would have to really punch up the carpooling.

Budget Bonanza

I finally laid out my monthly cashflow and it isn’t pretty. I took an average of the last three months and laid everything out.

In March: I saved an additional $13 over my expenses and automatic savings goals.
In April: I spent $131 more than I made.
In May: I spent $193 more than I made.
NOT a good trajectory.

So I have revised down to a pretty radical budget (for me), which I’ll be implementing immediately (although June is pretty much over and I’m set to be way over.) So starting with July, I’m hoping to turn this around in a big way... I think the biggest problem areas for me are going to be:
- Eating Out (because who likes thinking about money when they’re out with friends?)
- Clothing/Shoes (already been feeling like my wardrobe needs a refresh in a few categories, and I’m going to New York and Cape Cod in the next few weeks)

But to compensate, my stretch goal is to knock down a few more categories:

- Personal Care – Down to 75
- ATM – Down to 40
- Car Maintenance – hopefully nothing else happens with my car…

I think I’ve been pretty reasonable here, but anyone see any glaring categories?

April Goals Review

So I had four main goals for April – let’s review.

-- Really lock in on my budget (Not really. I feel like this month was unique, with two different trips. I DID record everything meticulously. I DIDN’T do very well with keeping my spending reasonable. I will record everything for May, and try to keep costs down so I have a reasonable budget estimate).
-- Budget equal posts/time to my writing and my literary interests as well as pf (Not so much, I think I only had 2 all month…)
-- Keep birthday celebration expenses low. (mmm, depends if we count my New York trip as part of my birthday… cause that’s where I blew it).
-- Move up to 85% of my emergency savings goal (No again…. I actually moved down to to 72%)
I guess the only good news is that I moved up in my B-School savings, which wasn’t one of the original goals. Sheesh. Maybe I should post my May goals somewhere where I see them more often and am able to put a greater focus on them.

Writing Down my Budget

So the name of this blog is quite deceiving. As it turns out, I don’t have a real budget yet. I have loose principles (that float around in my head) on how frugal I want to be and I definitely restrict my spending based on that. But as a newly professed pf guru, I know that sounds shady, so I have finally put pen to paper and gotten a REAL BUDGET calculated in a REAL EXCEL SPREADSHEET. Wow. Exhilaration. Here goes:

Rent & Utilities: 1,000
Food – Groceries: 150
Food & Drink – Out: 125
Entertainment & Fun: 50
Clothes etc.: 100
Gas: 100
Target-like expenses: 50
TOTAL: 1,575

This doesn’t include my automatic withdrawals and is loosely based on Mint.com reports, but at the end of April I will evaluate all of the spending on my credit card and see how realistic this might be. It’s definitely exciting to feel more in control of my expenses, and I’m determined to be realistic with what I really am going to spend so I won’t get discouraged. I think that’s been the main budget downfall in the past. Now I’m just going to be honest with myself, and work to get it where I need it to be gradually, over time.