Make a spreadsheet of your expenses and list all the major recurring categories like rent, groceries, utilities, insurance, entertainment etc. Add travel and miscellaneous in the end.
Make an estimation of how much you think you spend in each category and what it adds up to at the end of the month.
Now track your expenses for two months and write it down filling each category and be honest.
By the end of two months, looking at your spread sheet you can compare what you though you spend and what is the actual number. It will give you a pretty good estimation of your budget and gives you an idea of where you can save.
Some months there are unexpeted expenses and they are unavoidable but overall your monthly budget should remain around the same figure. Knowing the figure helps you to not go overboard and impulse buy things that you really don’t need.
Well, I’m not sure how we came up our figure but we decided that $$ amount was it, and it hasn’t changed since then (has been 4 years). Personally I think our amount is good for us, but probably wouldn’t be enough if we had kids.
Eating out/entertainment comes from the joint account, since it’s not a fixed cost..
if you want to figure out a grocery budget, why don’t you look at your statements? take a look at how much was spent at each grocery store, and set that as an amount.
No Sara it is not abt Haram ka Paisa, just barakah. I don’t know if I will be able ti explain it , maybe someone else could explain it better.
Whaaa? haram ka paisa hai kya?
Well, I’m not sure how we came up our figure but we decided that $$ amount was it, and it hasn’t changed since then (has been 4 years). Personally I think our amount is good for us, but probably wouldn’t be enough if we had kids.
Eating out/entertainment comes from the joint account, since it’s not a fixed cost..
if you want to figure out a grocery budget, why don’t you look at your statements? take a look at how much was spent at each grocery store, and set that as an amount.
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Hey automne, I am trying to fix up my spreadsheet to send to you. I think I promised this before but I didn't have time to do it.
If your salary is going into your bank account, it makes sense to use debit cards. You always have a record in your statements for every expense... no need to figure out were you spent that $10.
So literally everything is in my spreadsheet... including lines for when we withdraw money and the amount... and we know it's for small stuff like lunch expenses etc so it's roughly the same every month. All other shopping is done on the debit card. My end of month balance in the spreadsheet should match up exactly with the end of month balance of my account.
If I were you I would start off by trying to fill in every single expense for the last three months. This way you can see exactly how much you are spending and on what and therefore where you can make cutbacks. Even if you are withdrawing cash you can still do it.... just write what that $100 was withdrawn for.
I've not lived abroad so I can't say why this is happening but it may be because stuff like eating out and other 'luxuries' are more expensive in the West?
Bebo, that is a misunderstanding by ppl living in N. America. We used to earn almost 60% less than we do now and this is after tax income.
Last I know, there is no income tax in Gulf countries. And there must be something different that is off setting your money in NA, otherwise with 60% more income you should not be having money/saving issues.
What kind expenses do you think are different/more here compare to when you were in Gulf?
I think gulf we had different price points when eating out.
I mean if we had only 3 dollars we could easily get chicken shawarmas and coke and we would be set. Can't do that here on avg it costs 30 dollars for 2 ppl. I usually don't eat out at all, but on weekends hubby would like to eat out and I hate saying no.
Grocery bills are way way higher than in the Gulf.
Hareem, income tax increases with salary.... earning more just means you can manage the basics more comfortably so you can save if you don't also increase your lifestyle expenses.
When you're paying 40% income tax... that's not relatively less. This is a big problem for middle class families.
Hareem, income tax increases with salary.... earning more just means you can manage the basics more comfortably so you can save if you don't also increase your lifestyle expenses.
When you're paying 40% income tax... that's not relatively less. This is a big problem for middle class families.
completely agree! stopps please send me the spreadsheet too. that would be a great help!
For example, the difference between earning £40K and £50K is only £6K more in your pocket. The only way you can save that £6K is if you don't change any of your expenditures.
Once you start paying 40% tax, you have to have a big salary increase for what you 'take home' to make any difference.
We rented for 1 year. We are a one income household. Our rent was 2100 and monthly income around 4500. Electricity we had to pay, it would come out to around $70-$90 a month, note that our apartment was only 900sqft. Water was included in our rent. Things like water and electricity can be bargained into your rent depending on your landlord.
We always used our credit cards to build our credit scores, but we were very careful about not spending too much and paying in time. We used mint.com to track our spendings, it worked for us.
How ever, a year later we realized it was a wiser choice to buy a home instead of wasting money on rent.
You need to find what works for you, if you've been using the cash system for a long time then keep doing that. But keep in mind that having a good credit score means a lot in this country when you later on decide to buy a house, or a car etc.
My bad.