What is in your budget?

I'm happy to email you mine if you want but basically I've written down all our bills, like literally all of them and their cost per month. Mine are:

Mortgage
Electricity / Gas (estimate of monthly amount)
Phone / Internet
Sky
Car Registration
WOF & Maintence
Insurance - Life
H's phone
Rates
Insurance - Car
Insurance - Health
Insurance - Home & contents
Petrol
Food
Cellphone - me
Wheelie bin

I think that is all. They are all actual costs apart from electricity that I budget at $180 per month.

This is our budget breakdown. I think everyone would be different in terms of numbers eg we both work and have no kids so so there probably isn't much point giving you ours......

Mortgage
Groceries
Petrol
Pocket Money
Pets
Cars
Gifts
General Insurance
Medical Insurance
Hobbies
Power
Phone
Sky
Rates
Mobile Phone
Alcohol
Takeaways
Restaurants
Clothes
Haircut
Health/Beauty
DVD Hire/Movies
Bank Fees
Misc
Holidays

My weekly budget basically includes

Rent
Groceries
Petrol
Personal loan
Bills- what I have done with this is I worked out what bills are due each week of the month and how much they cost. at a maximum. Then I put aside an amount each week which covers that and some more. I put this money into a separate account and that surplus helps to cover bills that are not as regular like car registration/warrant etc so I don't get caught out. For me, I put aside $200 a week and some weeks that only covers what bills I have but other weeks there's a surplus, which I leave there for a surprise bill or if I put too much on the credit card.

The other way to do it is to work out what all your bills are in a year and work out how much they cost you in a week and put aside an amount each week so there'll always be enough there, but I tried that before and it didn't really work for me as amounts are so variable. But it could work for you.

Hope that helps you

Whatever is leftover after these essential costs, I use for things like entertainment or clothes or whatever. I have made my grocery shopping budget higher so that it can incorporate beauty items or cleaning items that I need, otherwise I found those things would consistently bring me over budget... it's working much better just to have a bigger budget for it in the long run (only talking say $10 extra week).

Edited by LittleN

We have an amount fortnightly that we put into a separate account. Covers all the usual as above but also servicing & tyres for our car. Kids activities.

It is extremely reassuring to see that money sitting there for my bills. Way less stress