The Eleventh Budget of the Year in Review

With only a couple weeks left until the year ends, its time to share the eleventh budget of the year in review to look at how I managed my personal finances in the month of November. I am excited that we are in the final month of the year but also anxious about how much I want to accomplish on a personal level. Whenever I share with personal budget updates people always tell me how they wished they could manage their budget as well as I do. So outright tell me that budgets are not ‘there thing’ and personally I don’t know what that means at all.

Budgeting to me is a tool that I use every single day in every aspect of my life because being on top on your money management is the best thing you can do for your today and future tomorrow. A lot of us want the time freedom, the ability to work a job we love but not be tied down by it, a home we love but not stress over whether we can afford the mortgage next month, we want to spend more time with the family but bills have to be paid first. This is why I budget, I want the time freedom to do and choose whatever I want in my life without stressing about money. What about you?

The Eleventh Budget of the Year in Review

The eleventh budget of the year in review started out with a bang, I was preparing for a trip to the Maldives, I got my travel requirements and a budget on hand. The trip was all inclusive meaning I would have been fine not spending any money on the trip but I knew I would so I made sure to budget for it. The next bang that I did not foresee coming was the rejection of my dental claim at work closely soon after followed by a surprise tax bill from the tax man. The month of November even with a promise of paradise all of a sudden started to look like it would be a tough monty-month after all but thankfully your girl had just said up £10k in the emergency fund only 4 weeks prior.

The month of November truly showed me the important on staying on top of your finances and ensuring you have a good enough emergency fund to fall back on should the unexpected happen. In the eleventh budget of the year in review, I intend to give you a walk through of how I budgeted all the funds that came into my life in the month of November. People might think me obsessive because I check my bank accounts daily, track my expenditures daily and record them daily as well. This is a system that I follow and allows me to stay on track and it takes me a mere 5-10 minutes every single day to do the checking, tracking and recording. It’s part of my daily routine and checklist and this is me to know exactly what’s happening with my personal finances.

To show you how this check list works daily, I will use the month of November as an example, a good one at that since I am sharing the eleventh budget of the year in review:

• Income – I have a couple of sources of income and for my everyday spending I don’t include my rental income or income that I make from Etsy and this blog, these incomes I budget them separately. It is very important for me to know every single month how much money I am working with and giving every single penny a job they will perform in that month or the next.
• Pay yourself first – the principle of paying yourself first is very simple, but it can only happen if you know how much you earn and what are your fixed expenses. By having this information you can then decide how much money you want to allocate towards saving in your bank account and saving through investing in the stock market etc. I have a rule, at least 20% of the income from my salary should be saved and invested since I know 30% goes to my 4-walls (keeping a roof over my head).
• Expenses – we all have expenses whether its paying your mortgage, rent or buying your favourite snacks, these are all expenses that we need to monitor. I know people who budget the amount of month they wish to spend on things like shopping but will not track were they spend the money, all they care about is did they spend the entire amount or not. Personally I prefer to track one step further and see where I am spending my money the most so I can see if a pattern is developing and seeing if the habit is something I should kick or monitor or not a bother.
• Tracking and Recording – everyone has a preference on how they track their incoming and outgoing and personally I love writing things down in my note books but using the trackers to have everything on one page and not scattered across pages. Whether you use pen and paper or use online trackers, it doesn’t matter, what matters its the mode you prefer and use works best for you. You might find excel trackers, Apple numbers and google sheets are not your thing and that is ok, maybe try printable’s instead and write it down.

Like I said, my daily routine only days 5-10 minutes but I needed to set it up first and that took a long time to find a structure that worked for me and later one became part of my everyday routine. Even though the month of November is a particularly interest one, I still stayed within budget even when I overspent in some categories I still had money left over in some categories which was interesting to see and now I can put the remainder money towards my financial goals that I have for the month of December.