by Hope
I have seen the comments about being more transparent and including more numbers, so I thought I would try this.
I keep a forecasting spreadsheet, as you would have it, that goes out through the end of the year. It is my primary planning tool as things come up and let’s me quickly see my overage or shortfalls in regards to my income.
It includes all my regular bills, and any anticipated extras on it. It also includes regular income and dates I expect to receive it (which we all know can vary.)
This is the snapshot of my income and payouts in the next week:
| Vollyeball Games | 17-Aug-18 | -10 |
| Adobe | 17-Aug-18 | -20 |
| Auto – Gas/Main | 17-Aug-18 | -35 |
| CS | 21-Aug-18 | 150 |
| Upwork | 23-Aug-18 | 231 |
| NH | 23-Aug-18 | 500 |
Some details:
- Princess has 2 games per week during the season. They each charge a $5 entry fee.
- CS and Upwork are income from work regular work.
- NH is a one time project for a new client. The project will be complete during this week, but there’s really no predicting when new clients will pay. Hopefully it will turn into regular work.
- With Gymnast only training 1x week now, my weekly gas costs have dropped from $100+ per week to approx. $35. I try to fill up when I’m in the city where he trains as their gas is typically $0.20+ less than where we live.
- I do not include groceries right now because we are still on food stamps. But we do grocery shop almost weekly. But we are very strict on meal planning and list making for those as well. I am trying to stretch everything.
Is this helpful? Is there something else I should include?
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Great idea to start forecasting Hope! I think you should include the money you are spending even if the bill is not due this week. For example, each week you “spend” a quarter of your monthly rent, a quarter of your monthly electric, a quarter of your monthly car payment, etc. that way when the bill comes due, you have already accounted for it. It smoothes your spending and lets you understand whether you have extra for debt.
A weekly anticipated budget is helpful but a more helpful look would be at the actual expenditures and intake. Your anticipated income and spending does not appear to cover the $40 you give princess to eat lunch at school. I t might be helpful for you to compare the anticipated to the actual to get an idea where your money goes during a week.
I agree that it would be much more helpful to write up a weekly *spending* post. Forecasting is fine, but writing down and reporting what you *actually spent* gives a much more accurate picture of what’s going on with your finances.
Good you are addressing this. I would like to see you keep your business finances separate from your family and debt service finances. To me, you’re on a slippery slope. We’re here to support your getting out of debt and on your feet as a family. Setting up a business is a totally different animal. If you need to put cash into your business, that’s completely logical, but maybe list it as “cash to business for expenses” rather than comingling every line item with personal expenses like volleyball games and auto.