How to budget wisely?

Good Morning or Good Afternoon or Good Evening, 

this post should take approximately five minutes to read from start to finish. 

Not everyone knows how to budget. Not everyone knows how to spend their money wisely. Not getting knows how to save money. I hope this post will be helpful for getting started how to budget. 

I think budgeting should be based on your preference whether it’s based on your income (weekly or every fortnight/every two weeks or monthly) or not. Jacob and I do our best to budget based on monthly despite of Jacob’s income is every fortnightly/every two weeks and we aim to stick to our budget. 

Without sharing Jacob’s income that he earns from work on average fortnightly/every two weeks, I would like to share how we budget. We always aim to have a minimum spending limit and a maximum spending spending limit for every type of bill. 

10% of Jacob’s income goes towards tithing. 35% to 45% of Jacob’s income goes towards savings account.

The rest percentage of Jacob's income goes towards of paying our bills. 

Whenever we’re not expecting some bills comes in the mail, we wanted to make sure that we’ve some savings to cover the cost of those bills and pay for those bills sometime before the payment is due. We know whenever we’re expecting some bills comes in the mail, we wanted to make sure that we’ve some savings to cover the cost of those bills and pay for those bills sometime before the payment is due. 

If you can't see the image above, it says "A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it. - William Feather."

Monthly; we focus on having our house mortgage, our property taxes, our house insurance, my health insurance, our electricity bill, and our phone bill (including jet pack/pocket WiFi) is paid automatically. 

Combined our house mortgage, our property taxes, phone bill (including jet pack/pocket WiFi), my health insurance, and our house insurance is $1,500 including paying extra $200 towards our mortgage monthly. 

Our electricity bill: Minimum: $180. Maximum: $450. 

Before we had children; we used to go out on dates once a month every month. We used to budget for our dates and spending minimum of $30 and spending maximum of $45. After I’ve given birth to Evelyn; Jacob, Evelyn, and I went out as a family to eat whenever we’ve gotten the chance to and we’ve budgeted minimum of $35 and maximum of $60. 

Every month; we receive the utility bill (covers the water bill and trash/rubbish collection) and I always like to pay every three months (the bill gets paid, and then some extra payment to cover the cost of the next two months). Minimum: $150. Maximum: $200. 

Every week; I like to go groceries shopping. I always write down a groceries list and always know what to get. Sometimes I get extra food to add to our food storage. Minimum: $75. Maximum: $250.

I’ve just started putting together in the pantry of just Evelyn’s snacks and should last her for about two months. Minimum: $25. Maximum: $45. 

Every six weeks to eight weeks; we’ve budgeted for bulk meats (beef, and chicken and sometimes fish and steak). Whenever we do get bulk meats, I always divide up the meats into portions then placed them in the ziplock bags and then store them in the freezer. Minimum: $40. Maximum: $65. 

Every three months and sometimes less than three months; we’ve budgeted for paper towels. 

Minimum: $18. Maximum: $30. 

Every four months; we’ve budgeted for laundry detergent and toilet paper and that’s how long how laundry detergent and our toilet paper lasts. Combined cost minimum: $50. Combined cost maximum: $65. 

Every five months and sometimes less; we’ve budgeted for Jasmine rice. We always get bulk of Jasmine rice for 20lbs/9.072kg. Minimum: $16. Maximum: $25. 

Jacob drives a car to work every working day and I drive Jacob’s truck whenever I needed to. We’ve budgeted for the cost of fuel/gas monthly. Minimum: $85 - car. Maximum: $150 - car. 

Truck: $150 - truck.  Maximum: $260 - truck. 

In US; I used a mobile app called “Ibotta” and it helps us save so much money. We’ve saved over $400 since September 2019. If you would like to download the app and start using it; here’s the link to my referral code. https://ibotta.onelink.me/iUfE/8cc13c64?friend_code=iebepgr

Heads up; sometimes Ibotta has the best offers/deals. For several examples; we got $3 to $5 cash back for spending on diapers, we got $3 cash back for spending on laundry detergent. We got some cash back (half cost of full price) for spending on baby food (when Evelyn was consuming baby food stages) and we got some cash back for spending on toddler snacks for Evelyn. The list goes on. 

Stay Tuned until next time.