Budget Notebook

Jon and I have always had a monthly budget. Jon managed it on an excel spreadsheet. Bam. Done. And it worked. It still works. 

But we have some pretty big financial goals in mind in the next few years and we want to get as much out of our budget as possible. 

So I did what any normal 28 year old would do when she doesn't know where to start...Pinterest, of course. 

Knowing I'm a lover of all that is design-y and pretty, it should come as no shock to you that I simply clicked on whatever pins looked pretty. Then I would judge the practicality of them second. Not too long into my pinning spree, I stumbled upon a pretty picture from Abby's blog. She had free printables that I snatched up right away. I showed them to Jon who seemed to like them (He didn't care about the super cute colors-MEN.).

The next day I went to the store and purchased supplies for our new budget binder. I purchased a binder, binder dividers, pens, pencils, calculator, hole protectors, pencil holder, and blank paper. And put our binder together. Of course I had to snap some pictures to show you: 

I couldn't get this page to not come out blurry but it says "Tracking Our Monthly Expenses" at the top.

The monthly expenses are separated by tabs-Groceries, Eating Out, Household/Cars, Gas, Entertainment, Clothing, Gifts, Vacation.

The pencil bag I bought had two compartments. The big one houses my pens/pencils, calculator, and hole reinforcements. 

The second-smaller compartment-will hold our receipts. The plan is for once a week I will pull them out and track them-then at the end of the month, I will staple them to that month's expense sheet.

There you have it. It's a work in progress that we will need to perfect, but it's a start. And I can't lie-I'm ridiculously excited to do this!

(You can get your free printables right here!)