This also includes money you set aside in other savings vehicles, such as a 401(k) or a 529 plan. And while they may never happen, it’s still smart to plan for them (such as in the case of home repairs or emergency medical expenses). They may happen only once or twice in your lifetime (such as getting married, going to college, or buying a house). Savings expenses may happen occasionally throughout the year, but not regularly (gifts or vacations, for example). Variable expenses are things you have more control over, such as groceries, travel, dining out, shopping, and charitable donations.

In general, your budget should be divided into three categories of expenses: fixed, discretionary, and savings.įixed expenses are things you can’t avoid paying, such as rent or a mortgage, utilities, and loans. You can make a budget for a specific time frame (monthly or annual are the most common). Take how much you expect to earn next month and use the expenditure percentages from step three to estimate what you can spend. You can now set up next month’s budget.For instance, maybe your typical $500 grocery bill jumps to $700 in November and December, or you pay your homeowners insurance premium at the beginning of each year. Estimate how much you’ll spend in different categories each month over the next year.Use last year’s pay stubs as a reference point and adjust as needed (perhaps you recently got a raise or finalized a new business deal). Estimate how much you’ll earn each month over the next year.Variable/discretionary ordinary living expenses (such as food, clothing, household expenses, medical payments, and other items for which your monthly spending tends to fluctuate).Fixed costs (such as housing payments, utility bills, charitable contributions, insurance premiums, and loan payments).Separate your spending categories into main buckets.(This is an especially useful exercise if you have uneven income.) For instance, let’s say you spent $500 in January on groceries, which was 12% of your household earnings. Note how much you spent in each category every month, as well as what percentage of your monthly income that spending represented. Categorize all of your expenses over the past year.Add up your take-home pay over the past year.Most institutions let you export your transactions as a CSV file that you can open in Google Sheets, Excel, or Numbers. A year’s worth can give you a good sense of how much you tend to spend over a given period of time. Collect all of your bank and credit card statements over the past year.(Ever get hit with a large bill, such as for an auto repair or emergency dental treatment? Those kinds of things can throw your budget off track.) Spreadsheet-based budgets (and some other budgeting tools) prompt you to create a myriad of categories and assign a dollar amount to each one, which is not only overwhelming but also likely to fail. It tracks your spending, revolving bills, savings goals, and earnings history to estimate how much you have left to spend in a given month in any category you want. We recommend Simplifi for most people because it’s a happy medium between the two. Conversely, zero-balance apps encourage a more hands-on approach, forcing you to account for every dollar you bring in (X amount for savings, Y amount for rent, and so on), but they tend to be idiosyncratic and costly. Tracking apps offer a 30,000-foot view of your finances, display your transactions in real time, and require very little effort to set up.

There are two basic types of budget apps: trackers ( à la Mint) and zero-balancers.

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