Month 1: Creating a Budget Planner & Making it Work For You

"Budget" can be a scary word sometimes. Even just typing it makes my palms start to sweat. Managing money can be one of the most stressful, time consuming and depressing responsibilities we have in our day-to-day lives. But if we really want to be smart about the way we spend those hard earned dollars, we have to have a plan. And that's where our FIRST Monthly Organizational Task comes in!

On of my resolutions this year {after reading my friend Jeff's book Soldier of Finance and helping create printables for his Money Dominating ToolKit} was to create a budget and STICK TO IT all year long. In the past, I have always tried to manage finances on the computer, in different apps and software and although that works great for a lot of people, I am a paper person. Always have been, always will be.

So I went in search of some ideas for creating and managing a Budget Planner that met my personal needs. At first, my goal was just to create printables that I could use in a section of my daily planner. I thought it would be helpful to have that information on the go with me. And while I do plan to use some of those printables in my daily planner {like account registers and bill tracking}, I decided that my actual Budget Planner needed to be a binder of it's own so that Eric can access it when he wants/needs to as well.

While I was on the hunt for ideas on setting up my binder, I came across this fantastic post on Echoes of Laughter and a lightbulb went off inside my head…if I am going to keep an accurate budget all year long, why not have all of our bills in the same place and make the whole Budget Planner system work together!

I ended up finding the most perfect binder for this project at Target for under $6.

It 's bright, colorful, has 1.5" rings, a fabulous front pocket and best of all…it lays FLAT when open.

Because I planned on giving each of our bills their own section in the binder, I knew I would need quite a few dividers. I found these at Office Max and they come in a 3-pack {24 tabbed dividers all together} and they are write-on so you can erase/change them when you need to.



I actually prefer to use my label maker and because the tabs are plastic, the labels will come right off when I need them to.

While I was at Office Max, I also grabbed a plastic zipper pouch so that I could keep a calculator and pencil in the binder. Our checkbook will eventually make it's way into this pocket too.

Once I had all of my supplies together, it was time to print my Budget Planner pages. In case you haven't been to the shop recently, we now offer our Budget Planner in 3 different sizes. I am using our Large Budget Planner for my 3-ring binder.

Our Large Budget pages are the easiest to print and they have the most flexibility when it comes to deciding which order you want to put them in. We recommend printing your pages borderless, but if your printer does not have that option it is not a problem. It just means the color won't bleed to the edges.

We also recommend borderless printing with our Small Budget Pages. They are arranged two-to-a-page so that you can print them on standard 8.5 x 11" {letter size} paper and simply cut down the middle. The pages can be arranged in any order or quantity that you like, but here are a few instructions to help you with the front-to-back order of our 3-page Monthly Budget worksheet and our 2-page Debt Payment Tracker.

For those of you who prefer our X-Small Budget Pages {made for personal/portable size planners} here are a few helpful print instructions for this set. You can also check out this post for more detail and screen shots.

Once you have all of your pages printed, it's time to start organizing your binder!

The front of my binder starts with our fun cover page...

Which flips right to our Monthly Budget Worksheet. I wanted this at the front of the binder to remind us what is designated to each category. Because our monthly income varies, depending on overtime and extra side jobs, we will work through this worksheet every month and keep a years worth in the binder so we can look back.

Following our Monthly Budget worksheets is a Bill Payment Checklist.

This is the part of our binder that I am most excited about it. I wanted an easy, effective system for paying bills so that none are forgotten and Eric and I don't assume that the other has paid them.

From now on, when our bills come in the mail, we will immediately place them in the folder at the front of our binder marked "Bills to Pay"

Then, instead of just paying bills at random when they come in, I will designate 2-3 bill paying days a month to sit down and go through the folder.

Once a bill has been paid, I will check it off the list and punch/file it in the binder like so.

I made a separate divider for each bill that we have, even if we don't get them in paper form. For example, we don't get a paper bill for Addie's dance studio or Blake's preschool each month, but I still gave them a space so that I can track electronic payments and file tuition forms.

You will notice that I have also made a tab for our checking account and main savings account so that I can fill them with registers to track expenses, withdrawals and deposits.

Also included in our Printable Budget Planner {but not pictured here} is a yearly Debt Tracker. If you are trying to break free from some debt this year, I highly recommend reading Jeff's book and following his blog, Good Financial Cents for some great tips and advice.

Obviously, managing finances is a very personal process and what works for one person or family may not work for another. I have read so many blogs and seen so many beautiful, functional budget planners and binders.  But in the end, I had to go with a system that was SIMPLE {math is not my strong suit} and EFFECTIVE. So if you are looking for both of those things, this system may be for you too!

And I have GREAT news today!!! We will be giving away a set of our Budget Planner Printables to 4 lucky readers!! Enter from now until Sunday, January 19th!

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Happy Planning friends! 

Stay tuned for lots more fun this January…and every month in 2014!