How to Balance Your Finances

How to Balance Your Finances
I'm going to talk now about how we get all of these totals that we're looking at. In this column, we have three thousand four hundred and twelve dollars which is the total of the budget amount for all of the monthly bills. We come down here and we have twenty nine hundred dollars budgeted for all of the other expenses that we've got. And so when we add these together we get six thousand three hundred and twelve dollars when we add the twenty nine hundred and the thirty four twelve together. This tells us what we expect to spend during the month in total and then we compare it to what we expect to get in each month when we these two incomes are added it is sixty six hundred and the difference between the sixty six hundred and the sixty three twelve is two hundred and eighty seven dollars and that's what we expect it to be over at the end of the month. When we compare what we've actually spent, we're actually spending a little bit less in the amount paid column than what we expected so that difference is sixty nine dollars, but when you come back and add the amount paid for monthly bills and the amount paid for our other bills, two thousand five oh eight, plus thirty three forty three, that is five thousand eight fifty one ninety seven. The difference between what we budgeted and what we spent so far during the month is four hundred and sixty dollars. Now remember on this, we are only three quarters of the way through the month in this example so we do expect to spend more for food maybe a little more for clothing and entertainment and some of that difference will be used up. Then remember that we also had two hundred dollars more on Mary's pay then we expected so we gained a little money there, two hundred dollars and when we add all of these amounts up, the difference between what was actually paid and what we've actually spent so far is nine hundred and forty eight dollars. We've expected two hundred and eighty seven dollars difference, so we're really six hundred and sixty dollars to the good of which two hundred is due to Mary's overtime pay and three hundred and ninety one dollars is due to not spending as much for food and household as we expected, but that's just at this point of the month. It kind of gives you an idea of how all of these sums flow together and how it can tell you at any point during the month how much you have left to spend in a particular category especially when you're looking at discretionary and other types spending.