How to Do a Budget for a Day
You can't live without money and sometimes earning it is hard. When you don't have enough, the pinch can be painful. By the same token, it buys you things that give you pleasure. The art is in making sure you have enough to pay your necessary expenses, save for a rainy day and enjoy the fruits of your labors as well.
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Instructions
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Keep all your receipts for one day to establish where your spending money goes. Make it an "average" day. If you work five days per week, pick one of those. If you're a stay-at-home mom, avoid the day you take the kids back-to-school shopping. Wait a few days and do it again, then do it a third time.
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Create a spreadsheet for each day's receipts, noting what you spent your money on and how much you paid for each transaction. Your lists for each day might include expenditures like picking up a prescription at the pharmacy, dry cleaning, buying fast food or paying tolls. Total your expenditures for each day, add them together, then divide by three to determine the average of what you spend on a normal day.
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Make a list of your fixed monthly expenses, such as mortgage, utilities, insurance premiums, car payments, cellphones and cable service. These are your necessary costs of living and probably remain pretty consistent month to month. If not, go back over your checking account register and get an average for each expense that might vary a little, such as your cellphone bill, depending on usage.
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Total your monthly fixed expenses and divide the number by 31, the number of days in most months, to find out what they cost you per day.
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Add up your monthly income after taxes and any other deductions that might come out of your paychecks, such as retirement contributions. Divide that number by 31 to find out what you earn per day.
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Subtract your daily fixed expenses and bills from your daily income. The difference is your "daily disposable income," according to Alice Wood, author of "Wealth Watchers."
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Compare your "daily disposable income" to what you disburse for spending money on an average day. If your spending money is more than what you can allot to it after you pay your fixed monthly expenses, you'll have to make changes. If not, you already have a daily budget that works for you. If the two numbers come out roughly even, you can tweak your daily spending to free up room for savings or for an occasional splurge, like dinner out.
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Tips & Warnings
If you have to adjust or reduce your daily spending, go back to your receipts. If they're for things you really don't need, such as coffee-on-the-go, try restricting yourself to a coffee every other day instead of every day. Shop around for a less expensive dry cleaner or consider a generic prescription, if your doctor approves it. If you can cut your daily budget by even $5 a day, you'll save $35 a week, or $155 in a 31-day month. You can devote this to savings or a splurge, or divide it between the two.
You can also take the opposite approach. Once you figure out what your "daily disposable income" is, just refuse to go over it. If you can only spend $16 per day and still have enough to pay your regular bills, stop spending for the day when you've hit that mark.
