June 16, 2024 • 30 mins
Perhaps don’t want to do a budget or maybe tried and failed. There is an alternative way to reduce spending or at least keep spending under control. Unfortunately tracking is a must to get a good number.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a retired accountant
turned truck driver, I reduce mydebt in a relatively short
period of time, debt reductionto achieve financial freedom
takes commitment, confidence,determination,
alternative debt reduction,perhaps don't want to do a
(00:23):
budget, or maybe tried andfailed, there is an alternative
way to reduce spending, or atleast keep spending under
control. Unfortunately, trackingis a must to get a good number.
What am I talking about a goodnumber or that is all what this
whole episode is gonna be about?
(00:46):
How do you come up with a numberthat you can use to keep your
spending under control? That is,in a nutshell, what we're
talking about, I do have a linkin my show notes. For this
particular spreadsheet as happygiraffe.or For slash live, I
(01:09):
believe that's the link thereit's a they have a couple
spreadsheets that you candownload and use for free. They
ask you to make a donation ifyou like it, or if it's helpful,
and you're and you're gettingyour debt reduction. Now five
bucks or so a couple of dollars,anything that helps them stay
(01:30):
alive. And I promote thembecause one is a decent
spreadsheet. At work, I used itfor about a couple months, this
does get the feel of what it iswhat it does. They've improved
it since then, because that wasprobably at least a year or so
ago. So and they have a book andthey have some live training on
(01:54):
that shirt too much about thatif you go to their website, you
can find out all thatinformation. But what I'm going
to talk about here is adifferent way to do a budget.
And this is really you're notreally doing a budget. But it's
a way to keep your spendingunder control. Because if you
(02:15):
have a debt problem, youprobably had a spending problem
of some sort or for some reason.
Unfortunately, in my openingstatement, I said tracking is a
must. What's that's what I wouldprefer everybody to do, you
still got to track yourspending. So that you know
(02:38):
whether or not you're hittingthis number or staying below
this particular number, you'regoing over a particular number,
and you need to do tracking soyou can get reports to help you
fill out the spreadsheet. Now,you don't necessarily have to do
it. But the better informationyou have up front, the better
(03:00):
information you're gonna get.
And war is gone to help youhappy draft thought or is very
good and useful spreadsheet, I'min the one that's called budget
happy or budget spreadsheet thatthe other one they have is for
debt reduction. It's where youlist all your say you want to
(03:20):
pay off your credit cards, youlist all your different credit
cards, we can just list all yourdebt, ply money, make the
minimum payment, like Irecommend, apply the extra
money, you keep track of it in aspreadsheet, and you can see how
muchyour debts been paid off. I've
never used it, it's a good idea.
(03:42):
It seems okay. It's just amatter of getting in there and
using it piano it can't mess itup as to say that. If you're not
a spreadsheet person or you'reafraid to use them, you can't
miss mess any of these thingsup. And you can always go in and
fix them. You can always changea number it's not set in stone,
it's not you put it in once andyou can never ever change it.
(04:04):
With that said let's get startedat the very beginning is the
happy draft budget spreadsheet.
And they do have a video show onhow to use this. But you start
by selecting one the currentdate, per se, and a time period
and they have it and weeks. Irecommend you do 52 weeks
(04:27):
because that's one year. Thatpretty much covers everything
that's going to happen in yourbudget. They have the sample set
up for two years. You don't haveto do that long. I wouldn't
recommend 52 weeks. It'simportant to remember the day
that you start this case it saysApril 3 2023.
(04:52):
So on every 30 days, so thethird of every month it's gone
to cycle into a new month.
And it's gonna go from April3 2023, to April 2 2024, for
this particular example. And inorder to move throughout the
spreadsheet, you got tabs on thebottom. And the first tab is
(05:17):
called period. And that's howyou're done. I mean, it took 30
seconds and you're done. Thesecond one is called income. And
right under, there's a paragraphthat's figure out how much money
you have to work with, includethe money in your bank account
and any regular income. So thevery first line is bank balance.
What's the current balance onthis day and your checking
(05:42):
account, we're only talkingabout checking account if you
have a checking and a savings donot include balance in your
savings account. Because this isgonna figure out how much money
you have to spend every week.
That's the number we're comingup with. It's the now amount of
money that you can spend everyweek without overspending. So
(06:06):
you've put in your current bankbalance as of April 3,
then you list all your incomeitems. So if you're single, the
only one person put, you know,the maybe the name of your
company, they have my onlypaycheck, but you can put in the
(06:29):
source, the name of youremployer type, how often you get
paid is a weekly, bi weekly. Andif you click under it on the
Type field, a little box popsup. And you got to get paid
every other week, the first and15th, the second Wednesday,
(06:49):
third, Wednesday, fourth, everyfour weeks, Monday, yearly, one
time, so all the options shouldcome up. So if you're starting
this and April 3 Hemsby, a dateyou get paid, then you're pretty
well set, you just say and youget paid weekly, just select
weekly, the exam example hereis,
(07:11):
is every other week. And what'syour take home amount, what's
the net amount of money thatit's your checking account, or
the net amount of the amount ofmoney you can deposit in your
checking account. If you havedirect deposit, which you
probably should, if you don't,you should set it up if your
employer offers it mostemployers offer nowadays. So
(07:34):
it's the amount of money beingdeposit in that checking
account. When is the next paydate. So we're on April 3, he's
getting paid on April 7, whichis Friday, and he gets paid
every other week. That's all youhave to put in there.
One time and you're done. So ifyou get paid weekly, you put
(07:56):
that in once or you put yourincome in, how often from how
often you get paid. You put yourspouse's income in how often
your spouse gets paid. Any othersources of income that you get
on a regular basis, say youwork.
Have a part time business, youdo a business side because
(08:18):
you're a firefighter. And youwork four days a week, he got
three days off, you started yourown business, and you make about
$500 A week or $500 a month orwhatever you put that in there.
Also, if it's a regular streamof income, you can include that
in this spreadsheet, becauseit's important, because it's
(08:41):
money you have available, andnot only to spend but to pay
your bills. Then the third tabis called fixed expenses. This
is a list worry your tracking isgonna help you fix expenses
occur on a regular basis. Andthe amount usually stays the
same but not necessarily.
Included is like savings andother fixed expenses. And
(09:06):
they're broken down in thisspreadsheet by monthly yearly,
one time. And other they'vechanged this since I've done my
testing but monthly is startthere. And the example is Scott,
your mortgage your rent.
(09:28):
So you'd put the name of whoyou're paying, or what it is
whatever the case, you put inthe dollar amount, day that you
pay the bill.
We only want the day this willhappen each month that should be
the number between one and 31st.
So they pretty much made thisfairly simple. So if you pay
(09:49):
your mortgage on the fifth ofevery month you put in the name
who you pay, the dollar amountthat gets paid
And the fifth. And the payutility, say your electric bills
paid on the 12, electric bill,the dollar amount, the 12, your
(10:10):
natural gas, the dollar amount,the day you pay it, your cell
phone, your car payments,everything you pay each and
every month, no matter whathappens. And if you want to put
a little bit of money into asavings account, say you want to
save $25 a month, and you wantto deposit transfer it on the
(10:35):
20th of each month, he can putthat in there also. But if
you're struggling to pay offdebt, you're probably on a half
of all your monthly credit cardpayments. And he may not quite
have enough money to put alittle bit in savings. So the
savings is something you can addit later, you can come in. Once
(11:00):
you have this set up, you cancome back and adjust it any way
you want. You can add things, itcould be six months down the
road, and you can make changes.
But remember, when you makethose changes, your weekly
dollar amounts gonna change, itcould go up or down. And if it
goes down, that means you got toadjust your savings, or your
spending down to match what thedollar amount you have. So the
(11:22):
idea on the spreadsheet iseverything you know, you pay on
a regular basis is set up bimonthly. And then they have
yearly, yearly, it could be likeyour car registration, Christmas
gifts, car insurance, anythingyou pay once a year, which may
(11:42):
not be a whole lot like for me,I have a couple streaming
subscription that pay once ayear, but it's not a whole lot.
Then you have another column, orsection, it's called one time,
something you pay off one timedo maybe a one time event, maybe
you haven't your 10thanniversary wedding anniversary,
(12:07):
you want to have a big party,and you spend $1,000. So you
could put that in there. Oryou're planning on doing it
sometime in the future,under yearly, what you could do,
if you pay things quarterly, youhave to set say you pay your
instead of paying car insuranceonce a year, you pay it every
(12:29):
three months or once a quarter,from your start date, you look
forward, you put in carinsurance, the dollar amount,
and the next date, you're gonnapay it, which may be three
months from now it could be thefollowing month could be the
current month. But that would beyour first payment. Now you got
(12:50):
to put this in four timesbecause we're looking at a year
a year cycle here. So if you payit quarterly, you enter it four
separate times, with fourdifferent dates, the date that
you pay, at least the month,close to the day, it doesn't
have to be exact day we get itclose. And then the year. Now
(13:13):
you're gonna like since we'restarting in April, and ending in
April, you're gonna lap over ayear. So be careful there. And
if you just paid it the previousmonth, that would be the last
one you put in your spreadsheetfor you the yearly thing. So you
could break down your quarterlyand throw them under the yearly
(13:35):
column, your semi annual, you dothe same thing, but you only
enter it twice. I really when Iwas using it didn't really use
the one time maybe once ortwice. And then other, I don't
know what you would call itbecause of its day care that
would be monthly could bemonthly, or maybe can include
(13:56):
that under other. Okay, underother they have it set up every
three months. So that would beyour quarterly. So what you
could do is put your carinsurance under other you could
do either or way, fine, figureout the first quarter that
you're gonna pay when that isand then set up every three
(14:19):
months. And then, you know, onceyou make that first payment, oh
go out three months, and thenthree months and three months.
So that'd be the easiest way todo it. If you have something
that you want to include, orthey have pest control, maybe
it's a one time thing. Maybeit's something you're going to
(14:44):
do only do in the summer time.
Others were you put everythingthat pops up on your list that
you don't know where to put. Soonce you get all that done now
we go to tab four and it'scalled Happy money. And this is
that numberYou're looking for, we're
looking for a number that wedon't want to go over. Now, when
you're putting all theseexpenses in here, notice I
(15:07):
didn't say anything about gasfor the car or groceries, things
that you pay, maybe weekly,maybe you go this grocery store
a couple times a week, maybe youhave to put gas in two different
cars. And it might have threedifferent times those type
expenses asked unknown, whereyou don't know when you're gonna
(15:28):
do it. And you don't have theexact or close dollar amount.
groceries, gas, dentists,doctors, when I say dentist, and
Doctor, I'm talking about yourcopay, the out of pocket, the
$20 2550, whatever it is, youreally don't know what's gonna
be those are the things is happymoney is going to pay for, it's
(15:51):
gonna use this money to pay forthings that's not included in
your expense. Spreadsheet, thinkof it that way. So what did you
not include? So if he didn'tinclude car insurance, or
homeowners insurance, or whatyou should, because of the big
numbers, or renter's insurance,because there's a small number,
(16:13):
then that would come out, you'rehappy money, just so you get a
better understanding what'sgoing on here, this is not happy
money, you go out and buywhatever you want. This is happy
money that you pay for things isnot already accounted for, in
particular spreadsheet, that youspend money on a regular basis.
Blow is your maximum weeklyallowance in an easy, perfect
(16:37):
world. And what they do is theytake your total income for the
year or for the time period,which are this, which I this is
two years, but we're setting itup for a year, that total a
fixed expense that you enteredin your expense area. And they
come up with how much you haveto spend. And they take that and
(16:59):
they divided it by the timeperiod that you set up in this
case, it was two years, and theycome up with a max allowance.
And this particular example says$312.60 rounded up.
So your actual weekly allowanceis they put in $300. And what
(17:25):
that does, it's got boxes herethat turn red and green. And the
example the boxes are greenbecause it's under the your days
your account will go negative iszero, your low is bank balances
$10. Here are over underexpanding by and their case are
(17:45):
under expending by $4.65 a week.
So I would adjust that down to275. If it was me do a mind per
week, this is per week. And youonly spend it on gas, food,
dining out things like that. Andyou shouldn't be dining out if
you got a debt problem. If it'sin green, you're good to go.
(18:07):
That's your number, the $300 orwhatever your actual number
comes up to, you can adjust thatdown, make it 275 A week and put
$100 a week into your savingsaccount and see if you can do
that. So you start with yourfirst week, he tried to keep
(18:28):
your spending of everything notincluded in the spreadsheet, I
can't stress that enough, under$275. And if you do that you
have an extra about $30. Butleave five bucks in your
checking account with thatchecking account balance should
be higher than $10. It should goup more than $10 As your lowest
(18:51):
point it should be like 300ollars should be your lowest and
that's what you use to live onfor that particular week. sounds
fairly simple done. Then we havea nother we're not done yet. tab
called cash flow chart which youcan see the balance of your
(19:12):
checking account. If it's allgreen, you're doing good. And
the white you can see where thebalance drops down and gives you
dates and all that kind ofstuff. And then the final tab of
the ferry right side is called ajust cash flow. This is probably
where it kind of gets confusingfor some people. I didn't really
(19:37):
have much of a problem with it.
But let me just go over. It'swhere you can adjust your flow,
the cash flow that you all theinformation you put in there to
get it to match your bankbalance because they have a
running balance on your bankbalance.
(19:59):
But here's Some things to notethere. This is all based on that
first day that you start. So inthis case, it starts on April 3.
And then it's everything thatyou entered in there, except for
your weekly allowancegoing forward for, let's say,
(20:20):
one year, and the day that youput in that you are on a path
that you paid it are going topay it. So it's automatically
already in there. So you canlook, okay, on April 3 is $190,
one time expense deducted, thereis a monthly expense on April 6
of $250. And there was an otherexpense of 175, you go back and
(20:44):
look to see what those are. Yourincome when you got paid on the
first Friday is was is also inthere under income. And then we
have a column called allowance,that your happy money dollar
amount. And it's automaticallyadjusted on the start date for
(21:04):
the week, divided up and weeklysegments. So every time you see
another $300 deducted, becausethat was their weekly allowance.
That's the start of another weekwith you're trying to reconcile
this to your bank on from thestart until the day until the
(21:27):
end of the month, or end of theweek, you're not going to be
able to adjust to becausethere's already a bank already
has that $300 taken out. So Iguess technically, you could go
to the bank and take out $300cash, and your bank balance
would match on your start date.
(21:49):
And then use that $300 On thisto say took out $275. And so
you'd love to $25 extra inthere, because we're going to
try to save a little money, youtake out the $275 cash and you
use that to pay for your gas,your groceries, if you dine out,
(22:10):
whatever you do, that's notincluded on the spreadsheet as
what you use that cash for. Soif he only took out $275, he
need to make an adjustment for$25. And you make that a a
addition. So you make anadjustment, and you put in 25
(22:32):
and then notes to deposit intosavings. And that will adjust
your bank account, I just putthat note there because I'm
going to once a month transferto savings, when then you need
to make an another adjustmentsto do that at all, I'm actually
will adjust your bank balancenow you're in balance should be
(22:54):
imbalanced. With your bank, ifeverything happens on the day,
it's supposed to happen. Andthat's where the problem the
herein lies because every monthis not going to be the same.
Maybe your pay day falls on aSaturday or Sunday. So it gets
changed to Monday. And if youstart your spreadsheet on a
(23:14):
Monday, that's going to go fromone weekend to the next week. So
you would need to either waitand do nothing and a wall
eventually flow through or addit back in the previous week and
then subtract subtract it out inthe current week as an
adjustment if you want to beannulled like I was, but you
(23:36):
don't have to do that you couldjust wait to the end of the
week, make your weeklyadjustment on your 300 if that's
still working, and go fromthere. So the biggest problem is
going to be a timeline of whenthe date start and stop. And
that's the only reason you'llhave to make an adjustment other
(23:57):
than your allowance amounts isalways the start of the next
following week. So if youstarted on Wednesday, it's gonna
be Wednesday through Tuesday.
The following Wednesday is gonnabe your new start week. If you
start on Saturday, it's gonna beSaturday through Friday, the
next you get to adjust andthat's going to be consistent
throughout here for year justcash flow and it's once you get
(24:20):
the hang of it is not thatdifficult. Now let's say you go
along and you've been doing the$275 and you still have extra
money. You know you hadn't spendit all maybe that that first
week you just got done fillingup your your gas and your car
and you just got done going thegrocery store. So you took out
(24:43):
$275 out of your checkingaccount, and you still have $150
or $100 Well, the next week,don't take out the 275 only take
out 107Only five, make an adjustment
for what you left in there. Andthat's money that you can put
(25:04):
into your savings account at theend of the month. This
spreadsheet is very useful. Ifyou can put accurate and
complete information and there,the income part of it should be
fairly easy for you to figureout. The expense part is where
you're going to spend most ofyour time. That's why you got to
(25:28):
keep up with your tracking.
Because if you do tracking forthe first 30 days, that's gonna
give you your monthly expenses,which is going to be 75 80% of
what you're spending your moneyon, then you have to think, what
(25:48):
do I pay? Every once in a while?
Do I have things I payquarterly? Well, if you have
quarterly, you can put thoseitems under other because you
can set it up every threemonths. And it'll automatically
do that every three months foryou. Or you can set it under
yearly and put it in there fourtimes, however you want to do
(26:09):
it. The one time thing issomething that you're looking
ahead. What am I going to domaybe this year that I won't
ever do again? Or own due everyfew years? Or, you know, I'm
only looking at one year, whatcould that be?
(26:31):
Well, my parents are havingtheir 50th wedding anniversary
and probably need to buy them agift. So maybe I'll spend $200
Well, that could be a one timething. Maybe you're getting
married, and it's hopefully aone time thing. And you're male,
so you got to rent your tux andstuff. And so you're spent
(26:54):
thinking you're gonna spend$500. So include that and put in
the date that you're gettingmarried, or a week before you
get married. Now, you gotta yougotta use your own best
judgment, judgment on thesethings. I'll be back in one
moment with my final thoughts.
If you're interested in thearticles I use in the any
particular episode, I includethem in my show notes. I also
(27:16):
include links to shop financial,which is the software I use the
personally get out of debt, ifyou're interested in checking it
out. I appreciate it. I alsohave links to happy
giraffe.org/live. There, you canget the spreadsheets I've talked
(27:36):
about. If you'd like to make ussubscription or a contribution
to this podcast, I have a linkthere. Also, I appreciate
anything. And I reallyappreciate all your you persons
who are listening to thisparticular podcast. Thank you
(27:56):
very much. Okay, we went overthe basics on how to use the
happy draft.org. spreadsheet.
And but why do you want to doit? The reason is you have a
debt problem, or you have aspending problem. Maybe you
never kept track of this in yourwhole life. So you really are
(28:20):
not aware of how much money doyou spend on your monthly
expenses and your quarterlyexpenses? And everything that
you're already committed topaying?
And are you aware of how muchyou spend for groceries dining
out going out for entertainment?
And what are those surpriseexpenses you had that you forget
(28:42):
about that maybe pop up once ayear or twice a year? It is it's
a matter of getting yourpersonal finances under control.
That's why you need to usesomething like this or do your
own tracking, create a budgetand do it the traditional way.
If you don't like doing a budgetor if you felt like the budget
(29:07):
didn't work for you, or youfailed on doing it for whatever
the reason, this is a way to getyou started in the right
direction that God to tell youhow much you can afford to spend
on a weekly basis. Remember, themore information you put in on
(29:29):
your fixed expenses. The morethings you include, the lower
your weekly amount is gonna bebut the more money you're gonna
have to cover those expenseswhen they come up. So it's
important to try to includeeverything. Doing thing are not
(29:49):
going to include is going to begroceries dining out food
delivery, gas, you can eveninclude
If you do an oil change once ortwice a year, you know
approximate dollar amount youcan put those numbers and for
your automobile maintenance andexpenses, it's important. The
(30:13):
more accurate information youuse, the better information
you're gonna have. And thequicker you're gonna solve your
debt problem and you'll be gladyou did so
Hello, I'm your host, Mr. Chuck, a retired accountant
turned truck driver, I reduce mydebt in a relatively short
period of time, debt reductionto achieve financial freedom
takes commitment, confidence,determination,
alternative debt reduction,perhaps don't want to do a
(00:23):
budget, or maybe tried andfailed, there is an alternative
way to reduce spending, or atleast keep spending under
control. Unfortunately, trackingis a must to get a good number.
What am I talking about a goodnumber or that is all what this
whole episode is gonna be about?
(00:46):
How do you come up with a numberthat you can use to keep your
spending under control? That is,in a nutshell, what we're
talking about, I do have a linkin my show notes. For this
particular spreadsheet as happygiraffe.or For slash live, I
(01:09):
believe that's the link thereit's a they have a couple
spreadsheets that you candownload and use for free. They
ask you to make a donation ifyou like it, or if it's helpful,
and you're and you're gettingyour debt reduction. Now five
bucks or so a couple of dollars,anything that helps them stay
(01:30):
alive. And I promote thembecause one is a decent
spreadsheet. At work, I used itfor about a couple months, this
does get the feel of what it iswhat it does. They've improved
it since then, because that wasprobably at least a year or so
ago. So and they have a book andthey have some live training on
(01:54):
that shirt too much about thatif you go to their website, you
can find out all thatinformation. But what I'm going
to talk about here is adifferent way to do a budget.
And this is really you're notreally doing a budget. But it's
a way to keep your spendingunder control. Because if you
(02:15):
have a debt problem, youprobably had a spending problem
of some sort or for some reason.
Unfortunately, in my openingstatement, I said tracking is a
must. What's that's what I wouldprefer everybody to do, you
still got to track yourspending. So that you know
(02:38):
whether or not you're hittingthis number or staying below
this particular number, you'regoing over a particular number,
and you need to do tracking soyou can get reports to help you
fill out the spreadsheet. Now,you don't necessarily have to do
it. But the better informationyou have up front, the better
(03:00):
information you're gonna get.
And war is gone to help youhappy draft thought or is very
good and useful spreadsheet, I'min the one that's called budget
happy or budget spreadsheet thatthe other one they have is for
debt reduction. It's where youlist all your say you want to
(03:20):
pay off your credit cards, youlist all your different credit
cards, we can just list all yourdebt, ply money, make the
minimum payment, like Irecommend, apply the extra
money, you keep track of it in aspreadsheet, and you can see how
muchyour debts been paid off. I've
never used it, it's a good idea.
(03:42):
It seems okay. It's just amatter of getting in there and
using it piano it can't mess itup as to say that. If you're not
a spreadsheet person or you'reafraid to use them, you can't
miss mess any of these thingsup. And you can always go in and
fix them. You can always changea number it's not set in stone,
it's not you put it in once andyou can never ever change it.
(04:04):
With that said let's get startedat the very beginning is the
happy draft budget spreadsheet.
And they do have a video show onhow to use this. But you start
by selecting one the currentdate, per se, and a time period
and they have it and weeks. Irecommend you do 52 weeks
(04:27):
because that's one year. Thatpretty much covers everything
that's going to happen in yourbudget. They have the sample set
up for two years. You don't haveto do that long. I wouldn't
recommend 52 weeks. It'simportant to remember the day
that you start this case it saysApril 3 2023.
(04:52):
So on every 30 days, so thethird of every month it's gone
to cycle into a new month.
And it's gonna go from April3 2023, to April 2 2024, for
this particular example. And inorder to move throughout the
spreadsheet, you got tabs on thebottom. And the first tab is
(05:17):
called period. And that's howyou're done. I mean, it took 30
seconds and you're done. Thesecond one is called income. And
right under, there's a paragraphthat's figure out how much money
you have to work with, includethe money in your bank account
and any regular income. So thevery first line is bank balance.
What's the current balance onthis day and your checking
(05:42):
account, we're only talkingabout checking account if you
have a checking and a savings donot include balance in your
savings account. Because this isgonna figure out how much money
you have to spend every week.
That's the number we're comingup with. It's the now amount of
money that you can spend everyweek without overspending. So
(06:06):
you've put in your current bankbalance as of April 3,
then you list all your incomeitems. So if you're single, the
only one person put, you know,the maybe the name of your
company, they have my onlypaycheck, but you can put in the
(06:29):
source, the name of youremployer type, how often you get
paid is a weekly, bi weekly. Andif you click under it on the
Type field, a little box popsup. And you got to get paid
every other week, the first and15th, the second Wednesday,
(06:49):
third, Wednesday, fourth, everyfour weeks, Monday, yearly, one
time, so all the options shouldcome up. So if you're starting
this and April 3 Hemsby, a dateyou get paid, then you're pretty
well set, you just say and youget paid weekly, just select
weekly, the exam example hereis,
(07:11):
is every other week. And what'syour take home amount, what's
the net amount of money thatit's your checking account, or
the net amount of the amount ofmoney you can deposit in your
checking account. If you havedirect deposit, which you
probably should, if you don't,you should set it up if your
employer offers it mostemployers offer nowadays. So
(07:34):
it's the amount of money beingdeposit in that checking
account. When is the next paydate. So we're on April 3, he's
getting paid on April 7, whichis Friday, and he gets paid
every other week. That's all youhave to put in there.
One time and you're done. So ifyou get paid weekly, you put
(07:56):
that in once or you put yourincome in, how often from how
often you get paid. You put yourspouse's income in how often
your spouse gets paid. Any othersources of income that you get
on a regular basis, say youwork.
Have a part time business, youdo a business side because
(08:18):
you're a firefighter. And youwork four days a week, he got
three days off, you started yourown business, and you make about
$500 A week or $500 a month orwhatever you put that in there.
Also, if it's a regular streamof income, you can include that
in this spreadsheet, becauseit's important, because it's
(08:41):
money you have available, andnot only to spend but to pay
your bills. Then the third tabis called fixed expenses. This
is a list worry your tracking isgonna help you fix expenses
occur on a regular basis. Andthe amount usually stays the
same but not necessarily.
Included is like savings andother fixed expenses. And
(09:06):
they're broken down in thisspreadsheet by monthly yearly,
one time. And other they'vechanged this since I've done my
testing but monthly is startthere. And the example is Scott,
your mortgage your rent.
(09:28):
So you'd put the name of whoyou're paying, or what it is
whatever the case, you put inthe dollar amount, day that you
pay the bill.
We only want the day this willhappen each month that should be
the number between one and 31st.
So they pretty much made thisfairly simple. So if you pay
(09:49):
your mortgage on the fifth ofevery month you put in the name
who you pay, the dollar amountthat gets paid
And the fifth. And the payutility, say your electric bills
paid on the 12, electric bill,the dollar amount, the 12, your
(10:10):
natural gas, the dollar amount,the day you pay it, your cell
phone, your car payments,everything you pay each and
every month, no matter whathappens. And if you want to put
a little bit of money into asavings account, say you want to
save $25 a month, and you wantto deposit transfer it on the
(10:35):
20th of each month, he can putthat in there also. But if
you're struggling to pay offdebt, you're probably on a half
of all your monthly credit cardpayments. And he may not quite
have enough money to put alittle bit in savings. So the
savings is something you can addit later, you can come in. Once
(11:00):
you have this set up, you cancome back and adjust it any way
you want. You can add things, itcould be six months down the
road, and you can make changes.
But remember, when you makethose changes, your weekly
dollar amounts gonna change, itcould go up or down. And if it
goes down, that means you got toadjust your savings, or your
spending down to match what thedollar amount you have. So the
(11:22):
idea on the spreadsheet iseverything you know, you pay on
a regular basis is set up bimonthly. And then they have
yearly, yearly, it could be likeyour car registration, Christmas
gifts, car insurance, anythingyou pay once a year, which may
(11:42):
not be a whole lot like for me,I have a couple streaming
subscription that pay once ayear, but it's not a whole lot.
Then you have another column, orsection, it's called one time,
something you pay off one timedo maybe a one time event, maybe
you haven't your 10thanniversary wedding anniversary,
(12:07):
you want to have a big party,and you spend $1,000. So you
could put that in there. Oryou're planning on doing it
sometime in the future,under yearly, what you could do,
if you pay things quarterly, youhave to set say you pay your
instead of paying car insuranceonce a year, you pay it every
(12:29):
three months or once a quarter,from your start date, you look
forward, you put in carinsurance, the dollar amount,
and the next date, you're gonnapay it, which may be three
months from now it could be thefollowing month could be the
current month. But that would beyour first payment. Now you got
(12:50):
to put this in four timesbecause we're looking at a year
a year cycle here. So if you payit quarterly, you enter it four
separate times, with fourdifferent dates, the date that
you pay, at least the month,close to the day, it doesn't
have to be exact day we get itclose. And then the year. Now
(13:13):
you're gonna like since we'restarting in April, and ending in
April, you're gonna lap over ayear. So be careful there. And
if you just paid it the previousmonth, that would be the last
one you put in your spreadsheetfor you the yearly thing. So you
could break down your quarterlyand throw them under the yearly
(13:35):
column, your semi annual, you dothe same thing, but you only
enter it twice. I really when Iwas using it didn't really use
the one time maybe once ortwice. And then other, I don't
know what you would call itbecause of its day care that
would be monthly could bemonthly, or maybe can include
(13:56):
that under other. Okay, underother they have it set up every
three months. So that would beyour quarterly. So what you
could do is put your carinsurance under other you could
do either or way, fine, figureout the first quarter that
you're gonna pay when that isand then set up every three
(14:19):
months. And then, you know, onceyou make that first payment, oh
go out three months, and thenthree months and three months.
So that'd be the easiest way todo it. If you have something
that you want to include, orthey have pest control, maybe
it's a one time thing. Maybeit's something you're going to
(14:44):
do only do in the summer time.
Others were you put everythingthat pops up on your list that
you don't know where to put. Soonce you get all that done now
we go to tab four and it'scalled Happy money. And this is
that numberYou're looking for, we're
looking for a number that wedon't want to go over. Now, when
you're putting all theseexpenses in here, notice I
(15:07):
didn't say anything about gasfor the car or groceries, things
that you pay, maybe weekly,maybe you go this grocery store
a couple times a week, maybe youhave to put gas in two different
cars. And it might have threedifferent times those type
expenses asked unknown, whereyou don't know when you're gonna
(15:28):
do it. And you don't have theexact or close dollar amount.
groceries, gas, dentists,doctors, when I say dentist, and
Doctor, I'm talking about yourcopay, the out of pocket, the
$20 2550, whatever it is, youreally don't know what's gonna
be those are the things is happymoney is going to pay for, it's
(15:51):
gonna use this money to pay forthings that's not included in
your expense. Spreadsheet, thinkof it that way. So what did you
not include? So if he didn'tinclude car insurance, or
homeowners insurance, or whatyou should, because of the big
numbers, or renter's insurance,because there's a small number,
(16:13):
then that would come out, you'rehappy money, just so you get a
better understanding what'sgoing on here, this is not happy
money, you go out and buywhatever you want. This is happy
money that you pay for things isnot already accounted for, in
particular spreadsheet, that youspend money on a regular basis.
Blow is your maximum weeklyallowance in an easy, perfect
(16:37):
world. And what they do is theytake your total income for the
year or for the time period,which are this, which I this is
two years, but we're setting itup for a year, that total a
fixed expense that you enteredin your expense area. And they
come up with how much you haveto spend. And they take that and
(16:59):
they divided it by the timeperiod that you set up in this
case, it was two years, and theycome up with a max allowance.
And this particular example says$312.60 rounded up.
So your actual weekly allowanceis they put in $300. And what
(17:25):
that does, it's got boxes herethat turn red and green. And the
example the boxes are greenbecause it's under the your days
your account will go negative iszero, your low is bank balances
$10. Here are over underexpanding by and their case are
(17:45):
under expending by $4.65 a week.
So I would adjust that down to275. If it was me do a mind per
week, this is per week. And youonly spend it on gas, food,
dining out things like that. Andyou shouldn't be dining out if
you got a debt problem. If it'sin green, you're good to go.
(18:07):
That's your number, the $300 orwhatever your actual number
comes up to, you can adjust thatdown, make it 275 A week and put
$100 a week into your savingsaccount and see if you can do
that. So you start with yourfirst week, he tried to keep
(18:28):
your spending of everything notincluded in the spreadsheet, I
can't stress that enough, under$275. And if you do that you
have an extra about $30. Butleave five bucks in your
checking account with thatchecking account balance should
be higher than $10. It should goup more than $10 As your lowest
(18:51):
point it should be like 300ollars should be your lowest and
that's what you use to live onfor that particular week. sounds
fairly simple done. Then we havea nother we're not done yet. tab
called cash flow chart which youcan see the balance of your
(19:12):
checking account. If it's allgreen, you're doing good. And
the white you can see where thebalance drops down and gives you
dates and all that kind ofstuff. And then the final tab of
the ferry right side is called ajust cash flow. This is probably
where it kind of gets confusingfor some people. I didn't really
(19:37):
have much of a problem with it.
But let me just go over. It'swhere you can adjust your flow,
the cash flow that you all theinformation you put in there to
get it to match your bankbalance because they have a
running balance on your bankbalance.
(19:59):
But here's Some things to notethere. This is all based on that
first day that you start. So inthis case, it starts on April 3.
And then it's everything thatyou entered in there, except for
your weekly allowancegoing forward for, let's say,
(20:20):
one year, and the day that youput in that you are on a path
that you paid it are going topay it. So it's automatically
already in there. So you canlook, okay, on April 3 is $190,
one time expense deducted, thereis a monthly expense on April 6
of $250. And there was an otherexpense of 175, you go back and
(20:44):
look to see what those are. Yourincome when you got paid on the
first Friday is was is also inthere under income. And then we
have a column called allowance,that your happy money dollar
amount. And it's automaticallyadjusted on the start date for
(21:04):
the week, divided up and weeklysegments. So every time you see
another $300 deducted, becausethat was their weekly allowance.
That's the start of another weekwith you're trying to reconcile
this to your bank on from thestart until the day until the
(21:27):
end of the month, or end of theweek, you're not going to be
able to adjust to becausethere's already a bank already
has that $300 taken out. So Iguess technically, you could go
to the bank and take out $300cash, and your bank balance
would match on your start date.
(21:49):
And then use that $300 On thisto say took out $275. And so
you'd love to $25 extra inthere, because we're going to
try to save a little money, youtake out the $275 cash and you
use that to pay for your gas,your groceries, if you dine out,
(22:10):
whatever you do, that's notincluded on the spreadsheet as
what you use that cash for. Soif he only took out $275, he
need to make an adjustment for$25. And you make that a a
addition. So you make anadjustment, and you put in 25
(22:32):
and then notes to deposit intosavings. And that will adjust
your bank account, I just putthat note there because I'm
going to once a month transferto savings, when then you need
to make an another adjustmentsto do that at all, I'm actually
will adjust your bank balancenow you're in balance should be
(22:54):
imbalanced. With your bank, ifeverything happens on the day,
it's supposed to happen. Andthat's where the problem the
herein lies because every monthis not going to be the same.
Maybe your pay day falls on aSaturday or Sunday. So it gets
changed to Monday. And if youstart your spreadsheet on a
(23:14):
Monday, that's going to go fromone weekend to the next week. So
you would need to either waitand do nothing and a wall
eventually flow through or addit back in the previous week and
then subtract subtract it out inthe current week as an
adjustment if you want to beannulled like I was, but you
(23:36):
don't have to do that you couldjust wait to the end of the
week, make your weeklyadjustment on your 300 if that's
still working, and go fromthere. So the biggest problem is
going to be a timeline of whenthe date start and stop. And
that's the only reason you'llhave to make an adjustment other
(23:57):
than your allowance amounts isalways the start of the next
following week. So if youstarted on Wednesday, it's gonna
be Wednesday through Tuesday.
The following Wednesday is gonnabe your new start week. If you
start on Saturday, it's gonna beSaturday through Friday, the
next you get to adjust andthat's going to be consistent
throughout here for year justcash flow and it's once you get
(24:20):
the hang of it is not thatdifficult. Now let's say you go
along and you've been doing the$275 and you still have extra
money. You know you hadn't spendit all maybe that that first
week you just got done fillingup your your gas and your car
and you just got done going thegrocery store. So you took out
(24:43):
$275 out of your checkingaccount, and you still have $150
or $100 Well, the next week,don't take out the 275 only take
out 107Only five, make an adjustment
for what you left in there. Andthat's money that you can put
(25:04):
into your savings account at theend of the month. This
spreadsheet is very useful. Ifyou can put accurate and
complete information and there,the income part of it should be
fairly easy for you to figureout. The expense part is where
you're going to spend most ofyour time. That's why you got to
(25:28):
keep up with your tracking.
Because if you do tracking forthe first 30 days, that's gonna
give you your monthly expenses,which is going to be 75 80% of
what you're spending your moneyon, then you have to think, what
(25:48):
do I pay? Every once in a while?
Do I have things I payquarterly? Well, if you have
quarterly, you can put thoseitems under other because you
can set it up every threemonths. And it'll automatically
do that every three months foryou. Or you can set it under
yearly and put it in there fourtimes, however you want to do
(26:09):
it. The one time thing issomething that you're looking
ahead. What am I going to domaybe this year that I won't
ever do again? Or own due everyfew years? Or, you know, I'm
only looking at one year, whatcould that be?
(26:31):
Well, my parents are havingtheir 50th wedding anniversary
and probably need to buy them agift. So maybe I'll spend $200
Well, that could be a one timething. Maybe you're getting
married, and it's hopefully aone time thing. And you're male,
so you got to rent your tux andstuff. And so you're spent
(26:54):
thinking you're gonna spend$500. So include that and put in
the date that you're gettingmarried, or a week before you
get married. Now, you gotta yougotta use your own best
judgment, judgment on thesethings. I'll be back in one
moment with my final thoughts.
If you're interested in thearticles I use in the any
particular episode, I includethem in my show notes. I also
(27:16):
include links to shop financial,which is the software I use the
personally get out of debt, ifyou're interested in checking it
out. I appreciate it. I alsohave links to happy
giraffe.org/live. There, you canget the spreadsheets I've talked
(27:36):
about. If you'd like to make ussubscription or a contribution
to this podcast, I have a linkthere. Also, I appreciate
anything. And I reallyappreciate all your you persons
who are listening to thisparticular podcast. Thank you
(27:56):
very much. Okay, we went overthe basics on how to use the
happy draft.org. spreadsheet.
And but why do you want to doit? The reason is you have a
debt problem, or you have aspending problem. Maybe you
never kept track of this in yourwhole life. So you really are
(28:20):
not aware of how much money doyou spend on your monthly
expenses and your quarterlyexpenses? And everything that
you're already committed topaying?
And are you aware of how muchyou spend for groceries dining
out going out for entertainment?
And what are those surpriseexpenses you had that you forget
(28:42):
about that maybe pop up once ayear or twice a year? It is it's
a matter of getting yourpersonal finances under control.
That's why you need to usesomething like this or do your
own tracking, create a budgetand do it the traditional way.
If you don't like doing a budgetor if you felt like the budget
(29:07):
didn't work for you, or youfailed on doing it for whatever
the reason, this is a way to getyou started in the right
direction that God to tell youhow much you can afford to spend
on a weekly basis. Remember, themore information you put in on
(29:29):
your fixed expenses. The morethings you include, the lower
your weekly amount is gonna bebut the more money you're gonna
have to cover those expenseswhen they come up. So it's
important to try to includeeverything. Doing thing are not
(29:49):
going to include is going to begroceries dining out food
delivery, gas, you can eveninclude
If you do an oil change once ortwice a year, you know
approximate dollar amount youcan put those numbers and for
your automobile maintenance andexpenses, it's important. The
(30:13):
more accurate information youuse, the better information
you're gonna have. And thequicker you're gonna solve your
debt problem and you'll be gladyou did so
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