Creating My New Budget

I’ve moved to a new place in my same town and this has affected and changed my budget. I’m in the process now of creating a new budget for myself to accommodate the increased expenses. The process has been eye opening and honestly a bit disheartening.

My New Budget Highlights

I’m not going to share my entire budget here but I do want to call out a few items for different reasons.

I’m really proud of these items because they are all pretty good deals. The cheap:

• Rent: $625 (will go down if I get a roommate)
• Gym: $25 (I go every day so the cost per use is great)

I’m less proud of these items. In fact, they are kinda killing my budget. The expensive:

• Car insurance: $118
• Phone: $85

Things I need to work on:

• Roth IRA: $200 (I want to increase this)
• Food: $300 (I want to decrease this)

New Budget Thoughts 

Overall the budget I’ve created has a lot of room to shift and change over the next couple of months.

That’s great because I’m not at all comfortable with the current setup. It has my expenses (including savings) way too close to my actual income. I’d like a much bigger cushion and some discretionary spending which currently is pretty much nothing.

How I Will Improve My Budget

I’m planning to take

• I don’t even know the utilities average price yet so that will factor into the overall budget and I’ll try my best to keep these really low.
• No extras like cable or internet for a while. I’ll save money on the first couple months without these (I’ll never get cable).
• Cut out extra eating out. Unless someone else is paying then I’m not going out to eat. I find my food spending usually creeps up because of this category so keeping it under control will help a lot. Strict budget here!
• Additionally, I may take in a roommate in my spare room to cut down on costs by a few hundred dollars. I’m waffling with that idea right now but it’s definitely .
• Ultimately the way to fix my tight budget is to spend less AND make more money. My money problems often come down to the fact that I don’t make enough money. So if I want to save and eventually buy a house I’ll have to earn more. Hire me?

So that’s a bit about the new budget and about how I’ll be tweaking and working it. Eventually when I figure out an actual budget that works for my whole life I might share the whole budget for feedback. Right now it feels like it’s too much of a working state and lots of unknowns with the new expenses in the new house. We will see how it goes and edit and adjust from there!