Sample Budgets: Compare Yours!

Many people learn best by example; you may be one of them. The following sample household budgets are intended to show a couple of simple approaches to recording a budget. The important thing to realize about these is that there is no one right way to do a budget. Some people are afraid of not doing their budget the 'right way' or that if they make a mistake, there will be dire consequences. Nothing could be further from the truth - the only wrong way to do a budget is to not do one at all. Trying to create a budget and not getting it exactly right or accurate is far better and more useful than not trying at all. Creating a budget is an iterative process and there is no school teacher that is going to scold you and give you a bad grade if it's not perfect. So, let's dive right in and take a look at our first sample household budget.

Our first sample budget is for a single female, just out of college. We'll call her Sara. Sara has a paid for, used car that she received as a graduation present, a new apartment for which she just signed a lease, two credit cards she got while in college, a full-time graphic artist job at a sign company, and a cat. She sits down with a pen and paper and carefully comes up with the following monthly budget:

Income: $984, every two weeks (take-home pay)

Expenses, per month...
Rent: $1050
Electricity: $100
Internet/TV: $79.53
Car, gas: $80 Car, oil $10
Car, repairs $100
Car, insurance $106.23
Acme Debt Card: $79
YouOus Card: $54
Fluffy (shots, food, etc.): $60
Groceries: $150

Sara decides to play it safe and figures her normal monthly income, for the purposes of her budget, as just two pay periods per month (even though two months out of the year she will get 3.): 984x2 = $1968 and then she subtracts her total estimated monthly expenses of: 1868.76. Whew! She has 99 bucks left over; just enough to go out a few times to happy hour with her friends and cover a couple of miscellaneous items (clothes?) that pop up. Her health insurance is automatically deducted from her paycheck, and she figures the two extra paychecks per year will help cover vacations or emergencies (shoes perhaps?) that may occur. Not too bad. Let's take a look at another budget example...

For our second sample budget, John and Carla are a married couple with two boys. John is a utility supervisor who takes home $1462 twice a month. Carla makes about $400/month selling hand-painted pottery online. John drives his work truck during the week and the family shares a minivan. Several years ago, they bought a small 3 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood and they have just one credit card they keep for emergencies. While John is at work, Carla works up the following in a spreadsheet on their home computer, by allocating all their funds to appropriate categories for their family:

Monthly

Our Income: $3324

Our Expenses:
Mortgage: $950
Utility company: $209
Internet: $49
Satellite TV: $49
Van payment: $320
Van (gas, oil, etc.): $140
Van Insurance: $127
Groceries, etc.: $500
Home repair fund: $100
Life Insurance: $79
Rainy Day Savings: $100
Clothes: $100
Boys' college fund: $207
Entertainment: $114
Christmas and birthdays: $100
Investment: $100
Charity: $80

As a city employee, John receives excellent health benefits for the whole family, so Carla leaves medical expenses out of their budget. She has wisely allocated funds for emergencies, Christmas and birthdays, as well as long term investment in addition to what John is already contributing to his investment plan through work. John and Carla have also wisely avoided excessive debt - limiting their borrowing to just their house and vehicle. And they save considerable money by eating at home most of the time.

In both of these examples, our budgeters did what works for them. There is no one right or wrong way to create a budget. Getting bogged down by details can sometimes abort your budget before you finish. So, when starting out to create a budget, keep it simple. As you get better at estimating items in your budget, you can increase or further decrease the level of detail as you see fit after reviewing your actual spending from time to time. Your budget is a 'best guess' at what you think can work for your personal finances - a written goal that we strive towards, but don't always expect to perfectly meet. Hopefully, these simple household budgets have illustrated that a good budget need be nothing more than a simple list of your income and expenses, catered to your unique financial situation.