I thought I'd share my budget for the year. It's an annual budget so each month is a little different; for instance, in February (the month shown below) I'm setting aside $800 for our summer CSA share. But this shows what our fixed or predictable income is, the necessities we need to cover first, and then the variables, listed in order of priority so we fund the more important ones first and go down the list. So far, we are fully funded for January and everything but groceries is funded in the needs list for February. Once we finish funding the essential expenses, subsequent income will go to funding variables. We still have some variable expenses outside of that list, so when they come up, I'll fund them with incoming freelance money if possible, or we'll discuss taking something out of one of the other categories if we need to.
I feed this month by month into our ongoing budgeting tool which I call "Number Crunch" or "future checkbook."
January 4th, 2021 at 01:27 am 1609723632
January 4th, 2021 at 02:33 am 1609727590
So I predict between them they'll bring in $90K or more this year. But since it's all unpredictable, my goal is to fund a month or more of our budget in advance, to buffer against those $300 months!
January 4th, 2021 at 07:15 pm 1609787702
Best wishes to you and your family in the New Year.
January 4th, 2021 at 08:18 pm 1609791498
I have several other spreadsheets as well where I record debt totals, savings totals, and the family's personal spending balances. I keep 'em all in Google Drive so I can view past versions and access them from any device.