My Budget 2.0 - Simplified
I have just finished simplifying my budget.
If you are a regular reader you will have seen my (now) old budget, and will easily see that this new one is, indeed, much simpler.
The first thing I wanted with this new budget was to see at a glance how much of my income goes into the three main areas of the budget, which are: Essentials (Bills, Loan Repayments and Rent), Basics (Food, Basic Needs and Fun Money) and Savings.
You can easily see by the table below what percentage of my income goes into each main category: 50.7% for Essentials, 19.2% for Basics and 30.1% for Savings.
I also have broken down the percentages within the first two categories, so I know how much I am spending in each. Most experts say that you shouldn’t be spending any more than a third of your wage on rent or mortgage repayments, and so I am right on that level (thanks to my recent pay rise).
I simplified my budget because I am going through every facet of my life and trying to streamline and simplify it. But also because I didn’t see much point in dividing my money up into 10 different accounts. I wanted to focus on one thing: saving. And with this budget I can easily track that and push even harder to save more.
I am always finding new ways to save more money, and the good thing about budgets is that they don’t need to stay static. I re-visit mine about every month or so to see what I can improve.
Have you had a recent look at your budget to see if it is still working for you?
Image credit: kozumel
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[...] feeling being able to receive a pay increase and not have anything I need to spend it on. And since simplifying my budget I have a much better grasp of how much I need and how much I have left over to [...]