This is the official inside look of my Budget Planner for the 2018-2019 Academic Year! I use the Erin Condren Deluxe Monthly Planner that runs from July 2018 to June 2019 & has 80 Note Pages.
A little more about me to understand how I budget: I am in my twenty’s, work full time & full time grad student, no kids, 2 dogs, I live with my boyfriend & we split our bills 50/50, I have some debt, & I am building my savings. I am building credit & paying off debt with the Debt Snowball Method. I have a checking account where I get my cash from & my direct deposit goes into, I have a joint account with my boyfriend that we transfer our bills into, and I have a second checking account (labeled Bills Checking Account) that I transfer money for my personal bills into. Having separate accounts makes paying bills easier and makes seeing what I have leftover/extra even easier. I have my major VISA that I use for emergencies, gas, online purchases/groceries (sometimes), and my auto deducts. I pay this bill OFF monthly. If I make a online purchase or purchase groceries with this card then I automatically deposit or transfer the cash from my Main Checking account to my Bills Checking so the money is there when the bill comes in. I use this method for convenience, the cash rewards from this card, & to have a regular payment coming from this card to build credit. When establishing and building credit it’s important to show that you consistently make payments on time and that you utilize the credit limit wisely. This method doesn’t work for everyone but it’s effective for me & has helped me build my credit.
This bookmark/key is made from a Sticky note from the Woven Wonder Stylized Sticky Notes & a CoilClip Connector. The dots I use are categorized by Home, Utilities, Auto, Medical, Personal, Credit Card, Loan, & Education that are used throughout the planner on a bookmark.
Year View
I use the EC Colourful Circle Sticker Pack to mark: pay days, bills that don’t occur monthly (for example, I pay my car insurance every six months & Amazon Prime that’s once a year), & bills that are $200+ (rent, car payment, etc.) This helps me visualize the months that I will have to pay more bills.
Savings Tracker
I am using the “Dreams Page” to track my savings. Each box is a month that I will put the amounts that I contributed & total saved.
Monthly Note Page
This page starts month & I am going to use it for an overview of all my monthly finances. The pocket will be used for any receipts and bills that I need to keep for the month’s budget.
Monthly View
On each month, I mark the due dates of every bill with the dot for its category. On the side is where I put the list of each bill where I mark when I pay them. The bottom corner is the next month where I use the EC Colourful Circle Sticker Pack to transfer everything that I marked on the “Year View” page so I know what is coming in the next month.
Note Pages 1 & 2
- Page 1: Expense & Bills Page. This is where I write down all of my expenses & bills for the month. I separated this page into three columns: Bills, Amount to Pay, & Auto Deduct. The Bills column is where I write the FULL amount that is due for each expense. I live with my boyfriend & we split our bills 50/50 but together we only have 3 bills (Rent, Electric, & Internet). So the second column is the “Amount To Pay” & this is where I will write my half of the bills that I need to pay as well as anything that I am physically paying from my checking account that isn’t on auto draft. This column is essentially everything I need to have in my Bills Checking account for the month. In the “Auto Deduct” column is everything I have set to auto deduct from credit card (explained in my intro). This column is the same amount each month as these bills don’t change. The bottom line is my totals for these 3 categories. These totals are what I transfer out of my Main Checking account to my Bills Checking account & the totals I use on the monthly overview page.
Note: the first column total is the total amount for the “Bills” section as everything else in that column is divided into the other two categories. - Page 2: Debt Management Tracker. I love finally have a page where I can track my progress MONTHLY on the debt that I am paying. On the tracker, I write the debt, minimum payment, extra, and remaining balance. The top blue bar is the total debt at the beginning of the month and the bottom bar is the total debt at the end of the month that I will copy over to the next month. I make extra payments frequently to pay off debt or to pay what I spent within the month to get the bill back down. For example, if I buy something at Target I get 5% off when I use my credit card so I put that cash aside & pay what I spent on that card.
Note Pages 3 & 4
- These pages are how I had my previous Deluxe Monthly Planner set up. I am still using the same structure for the most part but now I have more room than I did before.
- Page 3: Bills Page. I use the metallic date dots to label each week of the month & cash stickers to identify pay weeks. This page is where I plan what bill I’m paying & what week I am paying it.
- Page 4: Bills. This page is a list & a pocket of everything that needs to be paid. I copied the amounts of each bill (from page 1) with its corresponding Colourful Circle Sticker to this page so I have the full list when I am planning on what I need to pay on Page 3. I also inserted a Pocket for receipts that need to be paid on my credit card(s) (note: the pocket on the monthly note page is for bills). Then when I am paying bills, I check what is paid on the dot.
Notes Pages
I have 80 note pages in the Budget Planner for Bill Due Dates, Credit Tracker, Student Loan Information, Account Information, DR Baby Steps, Debt Snowball Method & all other financial information.
