Well, it’s Monday night and that means MONEY NIGHT. Yup, Mat and I are sitting in an internet enabled bar posting our financial journal to the ledger. That’s right while others are playing pool we’re commiserating over our poor financial decisions of the past two weeks.
Why are we wasting our time keeping track of our expenses you ask? Well, it’s old fashioned but it only took 1 hour to review 2 weeks worth of expenses thanks to our handy dandy system.
Step #1: Always carry around a small notebook (Bank of Shamerica offers them for free as Check Debit Card Registers) and record every single expense using the accounting technique called “double entry.” Double entry just means that every time you record what goes in and what goes out for each transaction. For example I bought groceries for Mat and I looks like this:
| 1/22/10 | 1001 | Bank Account BOA VA | 72.71 | |
| 6001 | Food – Internal | 36.355 | ||
| 1200 | Accounts Receivable-Mat | 36.355 |
The credits are on the left and the debits are on the right.
I have a code for each type of expense (6001 always means groceries) so that I can search threw them easily. If you’d like a copy of my template I’d be happy to share it with you. A very nice young accountant shared it with me and it’s been a huge help.
Step #2 Post your journal (the notebook with all your entries) to the ledger (the spread sheet on your computer) every two weeks.
Step #3 Set realistic goals for saving money every week. I told Mathew my goal was to only spend $800 this month and he’ll laugh at me if I don’t meet my goal, so that’s my social obligation to meet.
In the name of open source budgeting, I give you my numbers for the second half of the year. I was traveling for all of July, August and most of December which means I wasn’t paying rent. And I didn’t pay rent for most of the fall in Brooklyn thanks to good good friends.
Happy Budgeting and I’ll let you know how next Monday’s budget night goes in mid-February.
| Avg Monthly Expenses July ’09 through January ’10 | |
| Bad Debt Expense | (1.29) |
| Cost of Goods Sold | (9.95) |
| Art Supplies- Personal | (1.99) |
| Supplies- Cloacina | - |
| Food – Internal | (149.47) |
| Food – External | (95.91) |
| Medical Out of Pocket | (6.14) |
| Food- Business Meetings | - |
| Reproductive Health Expenses | (14.32) |
| Apt – Rent | (71.85) |
| Apt – Utilities | - |
| Studio Space – Rent | - |
| Storage Expense | (54.92) |
| Laundry | (0.42) |
| Transit – Taxi | (21.50) |
| Transit – MTA | (33.84) |
| Transit – Other | (114.64) |
| Transit – Bike | (58.83) |
| Clothing | (10.47) |
| Gifts – Charity | (39.37) |
| Admin – Cell Phone | (57.19) |
| Admin – Insurance | - |
| Travel – Airfare | (56.23) |
| Travel – Hotels | - |
| Travel – Other | (20.00) |
| Inventory Impairment | (1.83) |
| Entertainment | (42.54) |
| Drinking and Dancing | (14.22) |
| Other – Misc | (16.27) |
| True Up | - |
| Total Expenses | (891.90) |
