How We Designed Our Budget Step 4-Notetaking
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
There are rationales as to why we make notes, but the reason for notetaking when working with your finances is more than just about numbers.
Leave A Trail So You Have Notes To Fall Back On
If we’ve learned anything about budgets over the past years, you need to know how they work before you carry out one.
I admit we jumped into budgeting feet first without formal training or online learning, so it has been trial and error.
This tactic hasn’t been so bad, but it can get frustrating for anyone, especially if budgeting is a new world for you or your budget differs from what you are accustomed to.
Learning first and then proceeding step by step is what we should have done, but they say we all learn from our mistakes.
Here, we are correcting them and sharing them with the world.
Over the past couple of months, we’ve learned that there were ways to simplify our budget, including the addition of a notetaking section.
Boy, are we glad we implemented that?
Notetaking is an essential part of budgeting. Why, you ask? Let’s take a look together here:
Scenario:
When you were in high school, and the teacher taught you a subject, did you take notes? Probably, right?
Why?
- So you could take the notes home and study them to answer test questions and educate yourself for further development.
Then why do you take notes when you budget?
- Simply because you can’t rely on your memory when doing your budget!
- It’s also to educate and further develop knowledge of your finances.
You will, and I repeat, you will forget!
If it’s been a long while since you were in school or you’ve had to take notes, I’ve found this list of tips titled Ten Steps to Good Note Taking to help boost your notetaking self-esteem.
They even touch on abbreviations, which will help shorten your notes in your budget spreadsheet.
- Don’t write down everything that you read or hear. Be alert and attentive to the main points. Concentrate on the “meat” of the subjects and forget the “trimmings.”
- Notes should consist of keywords or concise sentences. As a speaker gets side-tracked, you can add further information.
- Take accurate notes. It would be best to use your own words but try not to change the meaning. If you quote directly from the author, quote correctly and record the citation.
- Think a minute about your material before you start making notes. Don’t take notes just to be taking notes! Take notes that will be of real value to you when you look over them later.
Notetaking within your budget is the same as taking notes in class where you paraphrase what you learn or have to say in written form.
In this case, you’d be typing your paraphrased notes for the month into a spreadsheet such as our free budget download or writing into a pen-and-paper type budget or phone app notes.
3 Reasons Notetaking Is Crucial For Budget Success
The NOTES section in our Excel budget is where you will do all your monthly notetaking.
Reason 1
You can refer to certain receipts so you don’t have to refer to them a second time or can access them easily with essential data that you leave yourself.
When you input data into your spreadsheet and make notes, you can easily pull the receipt if/when needed.
Notetaking example;
- February 19, 2012- Wal-mart Spent $42.00 Used $4.00 coupons Paid $38.00
- Notes: I bought vegetables, dog food, and a Twilight DVD. Paid with Cash, Credit Card ( which one and who’s), Date of receipt- You now can easily reference what you purchased or at least have an idea.
- We typically would put in high-ticket items one’s that we could return. If you need to return it, open your spreadsheet and find what month of receipts you need to pull out.
Cons
It saves you LOTS of time, something that most people don’t have these days.
If you fail to track this data, you might have to look for a receipt that you have packed away in a file folder and have no idea what month to look in.
This will waste unnecessary time.
Reason 2
To track extra income or important dates that may have occurred throughout the month.
When you sit down to do your month-end budget you won’t need to think back x amount of days to what may have happened.
Entering important notes such as sold items on Kijiji that net you x amount of dollars helps come budget time when you have that information documented.
Cons
If you decide not to keep up to date with essential notes, you run the risk of your budget not balancing or being incorrect.
If you want your budget to show your financial health truthfully, you must be dedicated to the notetaking task.
Reason 3
To educate yourself on your spending habits and where and what you are spending it on.
Keeping notes also keeps you accountable for your financial actions.
Looking back also helps to see where you came from and your current position.
Summarize NoteTaking
When designing our budget, we felt it was imperative to have a note section to document any key notes for easy reference.
This task has saved us lots of time and headaches, mainly because remembering everything in life is impossible.
Budgeting helps control how we view and spend our money, which is how we became debt-free in under 5 years after buying our home.
This is important because if you aren’t organized, it may lead to frustration and failure when budgeting.
Keep an eye out for this up-and-coming post! If your desk looks like this, it will be a MUST-read!
If you missed the start of the Budgeting Series, posts 1-5 are below.
- How we designed our budget Step 1
- How we designed our budget Step 2
- How we designed our budget Step 3
- How we designed our budget Step 5
