Monthly Finance Breakdown

I believe I've mentioned before that I absolutely love budgeting and talking about savings, investments, and money-management. I think it's a lot of fun, albeit sometimes stressful. 

Last week I watched a webinar by TIAA-CREF for young women professionals. While the information was pretty rudimentary, I was reminded that I really need to start contributing again to my personal Roth IRAs. I've been doing my work 401k, in addition to maxing out my company match plan, but apparently that it not enough according to the webinar, so I'm back to monthly contributions to my Roth IRAs. This means I had to play around with my budget some and I decided to share my monthly breakdown in percentages to those who are interested in learning and talking about budgets.

Here is my monthly breakdown:

Rent: 34%

Education: 19%

Groceries: 14%

Restaurants: 7% 

Utilities: 7%

Extras: 5% (this includes doctor appts, presents, toiletries, clothing, races, entertainment)

Dog: 5%

Roth IRA: 5%

Savings: 3%

Transportation: 1% (I walk a lot)

Some months I have tax refunds in an early month or get some freelance work, so I sometimes change up the percentages based on what I would like to spend money on (usually more on dog, food, savings, or extras). It's actually really nice to see this in percentages, because every month, I balk at how much I pay for utilities (paying for premium cable seems like such a waste, but alas, without it we couldn't watch The League). 

I have all of this information, with actual hard data numbers, on a spreadsheet that I update every few days to include new purchases. Seriously, I love spreadsheets. I find them extremely fun to play with and have many different ones that I fiddle with on a daily basis. Definitely a tad bit OCD and type A, but I enjoy it. It's even gotten me a freelance job, so it's a pretty great hobby.

Next post, I will talk about my savings plans and goals. I have a few and each one is broken out month by month for about the next five to ten years so that I know exactly where I am with each one. In similar news, Trulia just came out with a report that over 50% of millennials are planning to ask their parents for money for their home down payment. That number baffles me, but more on saving goals next time.

I think it's really helpful to start a dialogue about saving because saving money is so incredibly important. Are there any tips or tricks you've learned along the way? Is there a specific money topic you would like addressed? I would love to continue the discussion!