Author Topic: Budget on discretionary spending  (Read 3466 times)

cerberusss

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Budget on discretionary spending
« on: May 19, 2013, 04:46:30 AM »
When looking at my discretionary spending, I noticed I'm spending 300 euros on restaurants, take away meals, lunches, coffee, beer and fast food, etc.

That should be brought back to 150 euros. I've created budgets for each category, and it looks as follows:
25 on games and apps
50 on going out with the boys
50 for taking the ol' lady to a restaurant
25 on my hobby (electronics)

I've started using HomeBudget, which can sync from your PC to your smartphone, so I can't put off accounting for the expenses.

Summary: cutting back discretionary spending from 300 to 150 euros.

cerberusss

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2013, 06:11:38 AM »
All in all, this is going surprisingly well so far. I've completely cut off the 'games and apps' business. For the other categories, I've stayed within budget as well. The 25 on hobbies, I'm sharing that with my reading expenses.

I was trying to go cold turkey with the candy/coca cola, but man -- that's really hard. I've sinned twice this month. I consider that a net win since I used to grab a candy bar or a coke from the vending machine daily. So all in all, pretty good so far.

Zelda01

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2013, 08:02:58 PM »
Good job on your spending changes!

It may take your body a while to adjust to the decrease in sugar.  When I stopped sugar, I carried a bottle of watered-down juice to get me through the rough times. 

I may look into a smartphone budget app, like you are using.  Also, maybe I should start reporting my spending in Euros instead of dollars, to make it seem like I'm spending less ;)

ep114

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2013, 02:31:11 AM »
When I've found myself getting too spendy in the past on things like this, I've committed to just spending a set amount of cash from each paycheck.  So if I ran out of $ partway through the 2 weeks, that was it, I was out. It's even a little bit of fun to see what you can do with $8 over 4 days, for example.  I would even try to use it to elicit sympathy from friends! Rarely worked though- they know my profligate ways....

cerberusss

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #4 on: July 03, 2013, 04:26:34 AM »
I would even try to use it to elicit sympathy from friends

Haha, "gotta help me out guys, I'm over my beer budget". I'm definitely going to try this, just for kicks.

Anyway, for the month June, I've done actually quite well -- 90 of the budgetted 235 euros. The big fluke is that our baby girl was born :-) so not much intoxication got done. Let's see how I'm going to do in the new month.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2013, 01:32:56 AM by cerberusss »

Iceplant18

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #5 on: July 03, 2013, 10:19:13 PM »
Discretionary spending is always an enjoyable one to work with.  Many people often don't even pay attention to it.  "I want it so I'll buy it." After a few years of monitoring my own discretionary spending I decided to go with a daily budget of $20 American.  I liked the idea of a daily budget because if I went over it then I'd be able to react immediately the day after by spending less so that I could catch up.  Works for me. 

ep114

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2013, 01:08:56 AM »
Congratulations on the new baby!!!! Enjoy!!!!!

MsSindy

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Re: Budget on discretionary spending
« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2013, 10:36:33 AM »
Discretionary spending is always an enjoyable one to work with.  Many people often don't even pay attention to it.  "I want it so I'll buy it." After a few years of monitoring my own discretionary spending I decided to go with a daily budget of $20 American.  I liked the idea of a daily budget because if I went over it then I'd be able to react immediately the day after by spending less so that I could catch up.  Works for me.

Wait $20 a day??  That's like $600/month on discretionary spending - what do you include in this?