Jennifer and I have tried numerous budgeting systems (envelopes, mvelopes, Excel, spend it all, spend what’s left, etc).  Last year we switched to Mint.com, and coupled with a few other tools it has been amazing.  I hope that by sharing this it will help other people manage their money better as well.

• We cut our food budget by 25% simply because we became more aware of how we were spending.
• We reigned in what I categorize as “personal expenses” and have a better idea of everything that is in that category.
• We’re saving 5% more monthly.

In addition to that, I can see all of our accounts in one place (checking, savings, credit union, investments, retirement).  At any point I can know where we are in terms of each budget category, and I can check it from anywhere with internet….including my phone.

Here is everything we’re using to really make it work…

• I started with Dave Ramsey’s Gazelle Budget Lite form to see how he recommended dividing up the pie.  That was mostly helpful for grabbing the categories and percentages to use as a starting point.
• I created a monthly budget in Excel.  On the left I listed all the expenses, grouped in the categories from Dave Ramsey’s site.  On the right I had the income sources. So, individual expenses had dollar amounts and percentages (of the overall budget), calculated from the income total on the right side. It also lists Dave’s recommendations right there for comparison, and I didn’t stick exactly to what he suggested.
• I set up our Mint.com account and added all our financial accounts.  Mint will try to assign expenses to categories, but it’s not always right and every Friday I go in and assign the previous week’s expenses to the right category and tag.
• The primary categories in Mint can’t be changed, so I created tags that exactly matched my Excel budget, which uses Dave Ramsey’s system.  So, on Fridays when I go through, I tag every expense appropriately.  Essentially every expense has 2 labels, the Mint.com category and the custom tag, but I only rely on the tag.  That probably takes 15 minutes a week.
• At any point I can go to the Trends screen and click on “spending by tag” and see a pie chart of how things are broken down for that month, and I can compare month-to-month.

It’s a lot to set up but it’s really easy to maintain.  Just a note, Mint.com has a budget feature but it tries to rollover surpluses and overages from month to month and that’s not how we roll.  Plus, I didn’t like not being able to change the primary categories.

How do you manage your benjamin$?