February Focus : The Budget

This month's focus is the holiday budget.  Recently, I spent some time going over last year's holiday budget and I did extremely well with my spending.  I spent a little over half my original budget and that included gifts, food, decorations, etc.

Although I was under budget as a whole, certain groups I went a little or quite a bit over budget.  For instance my grocery bill was nearly $100 over budget.  I did not realize I had spent so much.  As for buying gifts, I only spent half of what I budgeted.  Those early sales were a big, big help and I got everyone the perfect gift - just what they wanted.  The most I spent on a gift was $100 and that was the Wii Guitar Hero 5 bundle for my 10 year old niece.  The least amount spent on a gift was $3.50. The ladies in the accounting office where I work received alterd jars filled with a variety of chocolates.  Thanks to having most of the supplies already for making the jars, all I had to do was buy the chocolates to fill the jars (6 total).

Now it's time to get the 2010 holiday budget started. My budget is divided into the the following categories:

gifts
food/baking
entertainment
decorations/home
charitable donations
greeting cards/postage
miscellaneous

The first thing I did was assign a budget to each category. I found this site which has some nice worksheets.  There are 5 worksheets: a general budget, a budget for immediate family gifts, a budget for friends and extended family gifts, a budget for grandkids gifts, and a sheet for planning next year's budget.  Of course I made a few changes to suit my needs.  I like these sheets because I can just enter the amounts and everything is automatically calculated for me. 


Now with the gift category of the budget covered, I still needed a way to track my other expenses (food, decorations, etc).  So I created several more spreadsheets.  The spreadsheets have the following colums: Purchase, Storage Location, Amount and Balance. This will allow me to see how much I'm spending throughout the year and that I don't go over budget.

By the end of the year I will be able to see if I need to make some cuts to my budget or if I can lower my budget for next year.  If this year is anything like 2009, I will be able to lower my budget.

January Focus

As part of year round holiday prepping, our fearless leader, Gingerbug came up with a great idea.  Make a list of projects or ideas that we could focus on each month for Rudy Days in 2010.  You can see everyone's list here.

This month most of us are focusing on decluttering our notebooks - out with the old, in with the new.  I removed last year's shopping/gift lists, budget form, holiday menu, etc., and placed them in the back of my notebook to use as a reference.  Then I went on OC's website and printed the new forms for 2010. I also created some of my own forms.  The notebook is coming along nicely.  I have already added a few cookie recipes and craft ideas that I want to try.  Last year I bought Daytimer refill pages and inserted the months September through December in the calendar/schedule section of my book.  I didn't know they had planner pages in the normal 8 1/2 x 11. They fit perfectly in my 3-ring binder.

Now I want to decorate my notebook.  Check out this one done by Luludou, a fellow MHH member.   Isn't it pretty.

Next month's focus will be the holiday budget.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well it's a new year, a new decade. Where did the time go?

Last year I really didn't spend a lot of time celebrating Rudy Day as I had hoped. You know that thing called "Life" gets top priority over everything else.  This year I hope to do better with the help of my friends at Magical Holiday Home. 

Right now we are mostly trying to declutter - putting away Christmas decorations and making the home cozy during these extremely cold months.  Everyone's been brainstorming, sharing ideas and suggestions on ways to celebrate Rudy Days 2010.  As part of my Rudy days I've decided when shopping for gifts, I will do it by family. My intention is to focus on one family each month instead of the way I have been doing it in past years.

Myself and other members created a list of what we want to focus on each month during Rudy Day. My list looks like this:

Here's what I've come up with.

Jan.  -   Christmas notebook
Feb. -   Budget
Mar. -  Gift ideas
Apr.  -  Christmas cards
May. -   Gift closet
Jun.   -   Entertaining
Jul.    -   Crafts
Aug.  -   Gifts (part 2)
Sept. -   Cleaning
Oct.   -   Food/desserts
Nov.  -   Decorating
Dec.   -  Celebrate

I'll be back around the 25th with a progress update. Wish me luck.