Our Motivators For Better Budgeting Goals in 2019 : Dec 2018 Budget and Year-End Percentages

BUDGET YOUR 2019 STARTING TODAY

Budgeting better is the theme of our 2019 goals as we’ve learned that it’s equally important to do something better in order to improve our journey.

If any finance nerds out there tells you that they are pros at budgeting and never mess up they are full of you know what. The truth of the matter is that we ALL make mistakes and better budgeting is the key to our success.

Let’s get real for a moment.

Life happens and nobody is perfect not even with money but you can’t let money control you. It’s your passport or your ticket to a healthy financial life and becoming a slave to the lender is what you want to avoid at all costs.

Control Your Money

In our case December was a crap month for us as we spent far too much going over budget by $1086.50 with no extra savings and that was our fault.

This year was a particularly hard time for us with my father-in-laws passing and health related issues of my mother-in-law.

You can’t always budget for everything but you can do your best which is what we do with our projected expenses and savings.

Are we making excuses for spending too much at times in 2018? Maybe, maybe not because in the throws of death it’s easy to get depressed and not care especially when you know you have money in the bank.

Unless you control your money it doesn’t matter how much you make you’ll just have larger expense payments.

I wish there was an easy answer for us but we really were put through the ringer in 2018 and gladly await a brighter 2019. Thankfully the money was there to pick us up but for some of you reading today this may not be the case.

Life Can Guide You Into A Trap

Life experiences can most certainly push people into debt.

Lots of money in 2018 went to unexpected funeral costs, transportation, medical, renovations, eating out and clothing. In general our LIFE expenses went up which is where our focus went while creating our 2019 monthly budget.

Below are 3 personal questions Mrs. CBB and I answered together when we put our new budget together.

• What improvements can we make? This included physical and emotional in our relationship and as a family.
  
• What did we learn from our mistakes in 2018?
• How did our emotions affect our budget in 2018?

We also put our son in far more activities than we had planned to just to help him burn off some steam. We’re in the midst of dealing with the potential of him having ADHD but are still going through the process.

It’s been a tough year, that’s all but it’s still no excuse for us and we must budget better in 2019. You may think we are being tough on ourselves but here’s the thing, if you aren’t then you fall through the cracks.

Everything we’ve learned thus far about money and budgeting is because we’ve done our due diligence, succeeded, failed and got right back up again month after month.

Self-Care = Better Budgeting

It is from these experiences that we learn what we can and cannot do with our money and how important it is to love ourselves first. Too many people worry about appealing to the masses with the “Look at how well we are doing financially” syndrome that in background they are suffering or will suffer the consequences.

Nobody gives a care what you have, NOBODY. Post all you want on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and your friends still won’t care.

Social media can be the death of a budget.

Don’t let that be you. It can happen so easily.

I’m not saying that happened to us by any means but what we didn’t do was put enough effort into our budget some months because we didn’t have the motivation after dealing with draining issues in our family. BUT, we didn’t give up on our budget and we made it though 12 months of grocery game challenge posts and sharing our monthly budget updates with all of you.

Evaluate As You Go

It’s so easy to get caught up in the drama of life that you can tell yourself lies and actually believe them. For many it creates a happiness that blind-folds the actual problem they are facing. For others it’s a way out of a terrible place and spending money is their happy place.

I need to buy this because…

I must help because…

When you create your budget it becomes your financial bible where it may fluctuate from time to time but when you start to see huge spikes happening then you know it’s time to step back and consult life.

Grab a pen and paper and write down these 3 questions and then answer them. I find that when we document with a pen or pencil it tends to stick with us better than just typing it out on the computer. That’s just us though.

• What changes have been happening and how are they affecting me/us?
• Did I/we really need to spend, lend or donate what I/we didn’t have?
• Does my/our budget need to be reviewed and revamped?

That being said we wanted to create something motivational for us to put on our refrigerator. This will serve as a reminder that even through the tough times we have to take a step back and administer self-care and worry about our life instead of everyone else’s.

In 2019 one of our main goals is to limit personal purchases and to buy only second-hand unless what we need must be purchased new. The idea is to cut out everything that is causing us to spend more because it’s the only way to curb spending habits that put people into debt.

Seven Years of a Better Budgeting

When I started CBB 7 years ago this month it was a way to document our new budgeting journey and as a result we’ve come a LONG way.

Each year has been a learning experience by acquiring better budgeting skills through the process of accountability. We’ve also learned to become stronger as a couple and now a little family.

It’s all because of hearing personal finance stories, connecting with our readers and knowing there are others out there who stumble and fall and aren’t afraid to admit it.

I also know that our journey has motivated many of you to become better at crushing debt including your mortgage, credit cards to alleviate  the stress you hold.

A while back I wrote a blog post about how being debt free doesn’t mean you are free because you still have to maintain a lifestyle that follows the patterns that got you from point A to point B.

We didn’t win the lottery we simply followed a budget to help us save money, invest in our retirement portfolio even though we are still young. It doesn’t end there, we must continue to put our financial needs in the front of our priorities not only for us but for our son.

There’s a book by author David Bach titled, “Smart Couples Finish Rich” and truth is, that is the truth. You must work together to obtain your rich whatever that may be. Your comfort zone is not the same as mine and ours is not the same as someone else’s. Catch my drift.

He talks about how couples need to communicate;

• Personal Values
• Life Goals
• The Monthly Budget
• Contingency Plans (Insurance, Healthcare and Investments)
• Sex, Family Planning and Family Planning Methods

The two of you were probably raised differently when it came to money.
The two of you probably value money differently.
The two of you probably spend money differently.
How you spend money has nothing to do with how much you love each other.
In fact, money has very little to do with love… and a lot to do with how much you fight.— David Bach

Our 2019 will focus on budgeting better and I hope you will join us yet again as we embark on our seventh journey that will never be without bumps, failures and successes.

Mr and Mrs. CBB

Money earned in December 2018

Where the money went?

Hi Everyone,

As you can tell our December budget month was well over budget which we didn’t plan for. Consequently we have learned valuable money lessons about our budget as pointed out in today’s blog post.

We went a little overboard this Christmas season, which isn’t anything unusual for most people, but it’s Junior CBB’s first Christmas that they’ll be able to remember.

Not much else could be justified in the budget, it just happened to add up over the month. The heavy hitters this month were Health & Beauty, Clothing and Miscellaneous.

This coming year, we shall concentrate more restraint in these fields.

Budget percentages December 2018

Our savings of 19.25% includes investments as well as any savings for this month based on the income of $8,313.20.

We put money away for the projected expenses for things that need to be paid for in the coming months.

All of the categories took more than 100% of our income which shows that we had to pull money from the emergency savings account to pay for it.

Year-End 2018 Household Percentages

Our monthly expenses

Below is a breakdown of our expenses which helps us to understand where all of our money goes. Since May 2014 we’ve been mortgage free so much of our money will be directed at savings, investments and renovations.

I appreciate that you enjoy this budget update each month but I do hope you view this as an educational tool rather than comparing your own financial numbers as our situations are all unique.

Spending less than we earn and budgeting our money has been the easiest way for us to pay down debt and save money. It may be different for you.

1. Chequing– This is the bank account where all of our debt gets paid from.
2. Emergency Savings Account– This is a high-interest savings account.
3. Regular Savings Account– This is a savings account that holds our projected expenses.
4. Monthly Budgeted Total: $5,238.72
5. Monthly Net Income Total: $8,313.20
6. (Check out our Ultimate Grocery Guide to see where our grocery money goes)
7. Projected Expenses: These are expenses we know we will pay for throughout the year = $1,621.00
8. Total Expenses Actually Paid Out: $7,778.70
9. Total Expenses Actually Paid Out: Calculated is $8,313.20 (total net monthly income) – $1,621.00 (projected expenses) + $1,086.50 (savings from emergency fund) = $7,778.70
10. Actual Cash Savings going into Emergency Savings: Calculated is $8,313.20 (total monthly net income) – $7,778.70 (actual expenses paid out for the month) – $1621.00 (projected expenses) = –$1,086.50

Our budget results

Time for the juicy category numbers and to see how we made out with our monthly budget. Below you will see two tables, one is our monthly budget and the other is our actual budget for the month of December 2018.

This budget represents 2 adults and a toddler plus retirement investments.

Budget colour chart

If highlighted in blue that means it is a projected expense.

Monthly Budget for December 2018

Actual budget expenses for December 2018

Our FREE simple budgeting series

Do you want to learn to budget like we do?

Please take the time to read through our budgeting series plus read Budgeting in the New Year. I hope the information will help stop you from making common budgeting mistakes.

Our Ultimate Budgeting Guide from A to Z has everything you need to know about budgeting in one blog post.

1. How We Designed Our Budget Step 1– Gathering All the information
2. How We Designed Our Budget Step 2– Budget Categories
3. How We Designed Our Budget Step 3– Tracking Receipts
4. How We Designed Our Budget Step 4- Note-taking
5. How We Designed Our Budget Step 5– 5S Organization
6. How We Designed Our Budget Step 6– Who Does What and When?
7. How We Designed Our Budget Step 7– Balancing Our Budget
8. How We Designed Our Budget Step 8– Knowing our Coupon Savings
9. How We Designed Our Budget Step 9– Reading Our Bills
10. How We Designed Our Budget Step 10– Projected Expenses

Budget updates month by month

Just in case you missed our budget updates and want to do a quick search I’ve compiled them all on one handy page: monthly budgets.

• December 2017
• January 2018
• February 2018
• March 2018
• April 2018
• May 2018
• June 2018
• July 2018
• August 2018
• September 2018
• October 2018
• November 2018

That’s all for this month check back at the beginning of February 2019 (sometimes in the middle) to see how we made out with our January 2019 budget.

Happy Budgeting CBB’ers!

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