Works For Me Wednesday – Savings Spreadsheet

Originally posted September 6, 2006

It has been a long time since I participated in a Works for Me Wednesday, but today is a theme day, a “Greatest Hits Edition”.  And, this was my most popular Works for Me Wednesday post.  It seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people.

My husband and I took a Financial Peace University class this spring at our church. We do fairly well with managing our money, but were hoping to get some additional tips to improve even more. After hearing all of Dave Ramsey’s tips for money management, we modified some of his principles to work for our family. One thing we have started is to set up a savings spreadsheet. Here is an example of ours, with modified numbers.

I have it set up by month and fund. The first two funds are:

  • emergency fund ($1000)
  • 3-6 months of living expenses (not there yet)

We also put money in our savings every month for infrequent expenses:

  • insurance
  • car tags
  • homeowners dues
  • auto repair/maintenance
  • clothing
  • gifts
  • home improvements
  • school tuition/expenses
  • vacation

Additional funds are added as we feel they are needed. We put money into our savings every paycheck for the second emergency fund (3-6 months) and our infrequent expenses and specific items we are saving for (a new computer or a vacation). When a bill is due or we have made a purchase from one of the infrequent purchase categories, we know the money is there. The money is then deducted from whatever the specific category is. For instance, we recently had an unexpected car repair and we were able to use the money in our emergency fund to pay for it.

This is still a work in progress for our family and we hope for it to improve over time. We have only been using this for about 6 months, but have already seen an improvement in how our money is managed.

Update: We have been using a savings spreadsheet for our family for about 2 years.  It has really been working great and helpted to reduce our stress when purchasing an item when we know the money is available.

Go read more Works For Me Wednesday tips at Rocks in My Dryer.

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April 2, 2008 | Filed Under Finances, Works For Me Wednesday 

Comments

2 Responses to “Works For Me Wednesday – Savings Spreadsheet”

  1. ElizabethSue on April 2nd, 2008 9:55 am

    Awesome idea! We use the spread sheet for our budget but, I never thought of it for a savings template-tool…great post. Thanks for sharing.

  2. Amy on April 2nd, 2008 10:43 am

    I love Dave Ramsey! He has so much good advice. I love your savings spreadsheet (telling your money what to do). I may start one myself. :)

    on your update part you wrote- Update: We have not been using a savings spreadsheet for our family for about 2 years.
    Did you mean you have been using it?

    ~Amy

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