The Holy Art of Budgeting or, Shout-Out to Pheebee’s Mom

Ever since I can remember, my mother has been purchasing spiral notebooks and keeping them on top of a yellow basket in the kitchen. In the basket, she kept every bill for the past 3 months or so, and her checkbook. (I know, crazy that people still have those, isn’t?). Open the notebook to any given page, you would find the month written at the top. Followed by a list of every bill paid, and how much…to the penny. At least once a month, but probably more like once every two weeks she’d balance her checkbook. (I know this sounds like gibberish, but stick with me on this one; I’ll make it relevant to a time with online banking and check cards). It was then that I began to study the holy art of budgeting.

It’s not often that pheebee will acknowledge that I learned something from my mom. I mean, I can’t have her running about doing an “I told you so” dance every five minutes, now can I? But, I am publicly proclaiming the awesome of awesome that is pheebee’s mom, because she laid the smackdown on a budget, and accidentally taught me how to do it. I am now going to share that secret with you, because frankly, a new level of awesome does not lend itself well to a definition of broke that is actually broke.

Let’s get down to basics. Go get your last paystub. Like, now. I’ll wait. … Got it? Now, this may be a bit painful, but it’s gotta be done. Go get every bill you paid 2 months ago. Also, pull up your online bank account. Make a list of every bill you paid (paper and paperless people, they all count). Let me give you a few examples: rent, cable, internet, mobile phone, heat/gas, electric, insurance, car note, credit cards, savings, tithes. Got them? Need a few more minutes, ok, I’ll wait. I understand this is can be a slow process for those with the organization skills of a mad scientist. No worry, I’ve got time.

All done? Good. Now, pick up your paycheck. Take a look at the number after taxes. (There is a separate school of thought that starts at the number before taxes. That’s a little advanced for this initial lesson). Found your amount? Ok, write, yes write – like, on paper, that at the top of a sheet of paper. Now, this is the part that gets a little bit painful. We are going to write down each and every bill you have coming in in any given month. I like to do an actual subtraction from my income. So it looks something like this:

$10,000 (yeah right)
-$ 1,000 tithes
$ 8,000
-$ 1,000 savings
$ 7,000
-$ 1,500 rent
$ 5,500
-$ 100 health club
$ 5,400
And so on. You’ll notice that I consider savings and tithing to be just like a bill. Therein is lesson number two. Start saving some money, and consider it a bill.

Once you’ve done this, take note of whether any of your example bills happen to have spiked the month you’re looking at. So, if your mobile phone bill was extra high because you bought a new phone that month, then recalibrate it so that you have a better average. What you’re doing is creating a monthly budget. Random charges that you don’t normally pay should come from a different source, what I like to call the “discretionary fund.”

Now, look at your bottom line, once all of the bills have been paid. Whatever you have left, consider that your monthly allowance. Divide by four. Now you have a weekly allowance. This is what you have to spend on anything not listed above in the bills section. Here is where you should add your personal style into the budget. For me, I don’t consider groceries a bill, because the amount changes too much week to week. Instead, I take it out of my weekly allowance. If your bill stays pretty steady, go ahead and add that to your list of bills. What else comes out of the weekly allowance? Shopping (cringe!!!!), going out with friends, dining out (cringe, again!!), whatever. Again, ANYTHING that isn’t included in the listed bills. For those of you lucky enough to be rolling in the dough, if your total weekly allowance is more than you really need, then you aren’t saving enough. Take the surplus and add it to your savings line in your monthly budget.

Here’s a freebie tip for y’all. There is an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch (and, I assume for Android) that’s free and helps with the weekly budgeting. It’s called “Spend Free”. I bet by now there are a bunch of them. But every time you make a purchase or ATM withdrawal, just take out your phone and subtract it from your weekly budget. Bet you stay on target a lot more easily if you know where your target is.

Given that I am not a financial guru, I will refer you to the finance books I listed earlier on how to save your money and how to lower your debt. But, your ultimate goal is to not spend more than you make. Mkay?

One other thing, about my particular method of budgeting. I try to stay 2 weeks ahead of my bills. Why? Because I get paid every other week. But what doesn’t work for me is paying “rent” out of one check, and then everything else out of the other check. That never worked for me, because what happens if rent is due on the 1st but I get paid on the 3rd? Or, more likely, what if I see a kickass pair of blue satin peeptoe stilettos with a black snakeskin rose that are on sale for 50% off, and they only have one size 8 left? On the pay out of each check method, I leave them in the store. In my method, I’ve got a cushion just in case something comes up, and it’s a cushion that allows me 7 (but only 7) days to make up the difference. Incidentally, if you aren’t disciplined enough (or able) to make up the difference, then you have to leave it there. Hence, I got the peeptoes, but I had to leave the awesome red kate spade peacoat because it was $675 at the time.




Now that’s done, let’s redefine “broke.” On any given date, you will hear me say that I’m broke. And it’s true, by my definition and standards. The official Mission definition of broke is when you’re down to your “back money.”* What it means is, you are down to that money you have no intention of touching, EVER. Basically, your account should never say zero. Everyone’s “zero” will be different. For me, it means I have exactly 2 weeks of expenses left in my account. For others, “zero” may be a hard number, like $7500. Or maybe it’s $150. Whatever your new “zero” or your “back money” is, that is officially as low as you let your account go. Got it?



*This particular expression is being used without permission from, but with acknowledgement to Steve Harvey, comedian extraordinaire.