The Everyday Struggle

It is really a struggle to keep up with my personal budget especially because I’ve been craving for a lot of food lately. So I’ve been spending over the top of my personal budget. Even though we’ve been married for over a year now, we want to keep a personal budget. It’s what we call personal allowance.

Now, keeping a personal budget is similar to keeping a family budget. But family budgets are more tedious to do. They require more diligence and effort. I’ve been practicing family budget since January of this year and I must admit that there were months where I was not able to religiously list down everything. They were the months of January, April and May.

I simplified our family budget to only contain 7 items namely Electric Bill, Water Bill, Internet and Cable, Food and Groceries, Leisure, Car related expenses and Savings/Investments. I also set limits on everything except for the savings/investment part. Well I talked to my husband about the limits. Every end of month I send an email to him detailing about our month’s finances. I also include there if we’ve gone over budget, under budget or just break even.

I think this system works for us because I’ve been able to track down our family expenses (religiously I mean) since June. So we will keep on doing this until it is applicable. I hope it will not be an everyday struggle moving forward. J