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Hi ebrandon community! I am in need of your help. Tax time is upon us and my household has sat down to make a budget so we can plan for some upcoming larger expenses in our lives. We seem to have all the major budget areas covered but at the end of our budget we should have around $1000 a month that is being built up in our chequing account. Now of course this isn't the case and so I'm asking what are some things you budget for that I'm not? And how do you budget for one time payments - like a yearly gym fee, or paying to get our taxes done, etc. We have no children so that might help in this scenario.  
 
Our budget includes:  
Mortgage, taxes, insurance (house and vehicle), vehicle payments, fuel, cable/internet, hydro, water, groceries, spending money and investments (rrsps, tfsa, mutual funds).  
 
Do you include things on a month to month budget like hair appts, Christmas, taxes, sports, etc? What could we be missing that we could include to be more accurate or find areas where we are spending that we don't really realize? Thanks!

When I made my budget, I included as many things as I could think of. I wanted to give myself as realistic look at my expenditures as I could. So, yes, include haircuts, gifts (Christmas, birthday, wedding, etc), charitable donations, and entertainment. Make it as realistic as possible but not necessarily so exhaustive that you get frustrated or feel too confined and give up. I made myself an Excel spreadsheet and over the years I have added a few line items for things I never considered at the time. I also added a 10% contingency for emergencies or savings. I update it with my expenses regularly so I know if I am on track.  
 
A few things I didn’t see on your list that you may have overlooked or are not applicable to you include: cell phone, house repairs, appliance replacement, vehicle repairs, health insurance or things that are not covered under your medical plan, computer security (Norton), safety deposit box, CAA, clothing, and income tax payment.  
 
You might also look online for tips or even on any banking site to see what they suggest for budget items. Good luck.

A few categories that I have on mine that are missing from yours (depending on what you include in groceries and spending money) are restaurants, entertainment, clothing, gifts and pet. There are tons of budget samples online too to get ideas from.

Viv said "Hi ebrandon community! I am in need of your help. Tax time is upon us and my household has sat down to make a budget so we can plan for some upcoming larger expenses in our lives. We seem to have all the major budget areas covered but at the end of our budget we should have around $1000 a month that is being built up in our chequing account. Now of course this isn't the case and so I'm asking what are some things you budget for that I'm not? And how do you budget for one time payments - like a yearly gym fee, or paying to get our taxes done, etc. We have no children so that might help in this scenario.     Our budget includes:   Mortgage, taxes, insurance (house and vehicle), vehicle payments, fuel, cable/internet, hydro, water, groceries, spending money and investments (rrsps, tfsa, mutual funds).     Do you include things on a month to month budget like hair appts, Christmas, taxes, sports, etc? What could we be missing that we could include to be more accurate or find areas where we are spending that we don't really realize? Thanks! "

...download and print the statements for your accounts (chequeing, savings, credit cards, loans, etc)for the last 6 months or longer, and go through them line by line determining what category they fall into (groceries, maintenance, spending, etc)  
 
This will show you where you are spending the money that you haven't budgeted for or if there are areas where your are overspending.  
 
http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources/interactive_budget_worksheet.html  
 
I have used the above link to help with my budget and it has worked well.  
 
Good luck.  
 
Marpet

So for the items you spend once in the year, do you make a yearly budget and break it down by month to show those changing costs? Or just take the total for the year and divide by 12 to get an average for each month?  
We include cell phones but I forgot clothing and gifts which are pretty big categories. I like the idea of saving for car/home repairs. We have fairly new vehicles but hey you never know! We also have a significant savings account so that's what we've used for appliance repair in the past.  
 
I was also going through our accounts yesterday like suggested and it turns out we forgot little things like Netflix, iTunes purchases, etc. We keep entertainment/restaurants in our spending money category so that's covered off.  
 
Any and all tips are definitely appreciated!

I am glad this helped. I also forgot to add my newspaper subscription to my list. It was a recent addition to my spreadsheet.  
 
As I am on my own, I can be a little more flexible so for the once a year expenses, I just make sure I have enough money in my savings account. Generally speaking, I would take the cost of that item and divided by 12. This way I have a better idea what my monthly expenses are.  
 
Once you get started on this, it is amazing how you can map out your future. The side benefit is that if you need to get a bank loan, you can show them how well disciplined and prepared you are. My bank manager likes the way I budget and said she wished more people would do it.  
 
Your budget doesn’t have to be professional or fancy. It is your budget and is designed to serve you. Modify as you need and as your needs change.

Some really good answers already, and to answer your original question YES we put money aside each month for periodic expenditures like house insurance, driver's licenses, life insurance`, memberships, gifts, auto repairs etc. We figured out what we needed for the year + a bit extra and then divided by 12. We put that much away every month, and then when those things come up we spend out of there for those expenses.  
 
And like Marpet said, you really, really need to get a general idea of where your money is going. Going through bank statements help, but if you tend to spend pocket cash keeping receipts for a month might be necessary too.  
 
Also, something like an envelope system helps you not overspend in your categories. If you allow $100 for eating out, for example, you put $100 in an envelope and when it's gone, it's gone. We use a modified system where we have a separate (second) chequing account for everyday expenses like groceries, gas, etc, and all our bill come out of our primary chequing account. That way, even if I spend every penny in our "shopping" account that pay cycle, I know there's money in our primary account to cover the hydro, mortgage, etc.  
 
Dave Ramsay has a saying that a budget allows you to spend without guilt. He's right. It allows spending with anxiety and worry too.

We have our bi-weekly payments which are included into our spreadsheet. These include mortgage, loan payments, RRSP contributions. Extras that we have online accounts for which we transfer money into include:  
-Savings account  
-Auto/house repairs  
-Clothing/boots/jackets  
-Christmas/Birthday  
-Childcare  
-House tax account  
-Booze fund  
-Family activities  
-Food and Household goods  
-Auto fuel  
-Hydro fund  
-Vacation fund  
-Utilities (phone/internet/tv)  
-City water  
-Licenses/Fitness  
-Auto Payments  
-Truck tires (this is above house and auto repairs)

If you bank with RBC they have a built-in app called "myFinanceTracker". It automatically tracks all of your credit/debit transactions and allows you to categorize, split, or add cash transactions. You can also set a budget and get notifications when you've exceeded a budget category. Eventually it learns your spending habits and categorizes accordingly. I've been using it for years and it has really helped!

Has some great budget categories too. I don't break up my alcohol into a separate category but our entertainment budget is quite high. Maybe it makes sense to split this up further until we can track down to the nearest like $5 where all our money goes.

lots of great technique's that i do as well, like budgeting monthly for once a year expenses  
 
another thing i will add is, if you really want to know where your money goes save up all your receipts for a few months, maybe you can afford and dont care that you $2 coffee habit cost $10 a week or $520 a year(not including the doughnut lol) or that what you think are "groceries" are really luxury or convenience items from the grocery store but you will know what you can cut if you need too (make coffee at home, dont buy the expensive premade meals or even expensive produce now ect) same with all other bills, if you save ALL your receipts you can really know where cash is going and decide what you want to budget for as well as decide how much a month you need to put away

Yes groceries are definitely going to be one of my main areas of focus. I budget $500 for two people and I'm thinking that's likely high. If we worked at it and tried to hit more sales I'm thinking I could cut that number drastically.

I budget everything. Including once a year payments. We are 2 adults and I budget $100 per week for groceries (I do not have to buy beef and purchase half a pig once a year). If I don't spend the amount budgeted I move it from our general account into our savings account. At the moment I put it in the home reno's category as we would like to do major renovations. On average I spend between $40 - $80 a week. I am a flyer shopper. If we need something I buy it, but if something we use regularly goes on sale I buy it whether we need it or not. I find I rarely have to pay full price for grocery items outside of produce. I have a "flex" category where it's money that isn't necessarily ear marked for anything in particular. I find it handy when something comes up that I hadn't thought of. I don't put a lot of money in that category ($40 bi-weekly) but I feel it's kind of like insurance, for things I have forgotten or under-budgeted.

Viv said "Yes groceries are definitely going to be one of my main areas of focus. I budget $500 for two people and I'm thinking that's likely high. If we worked at it and tried to hit more sales I'm thinking I could cut that number drastically. "

That's what you budget, but is that in fact what you spend? I was recently helping my SIL with their budget, and it's surprising how easy it is to go over our budget amount on food.  
 
For example, you budget $500, or an average of $125 a week. Are you actually spending $125 a week, or do you do a big shop once a month and spend $300 in one shot on non-perishables/freezer goods and then infill fresh produce and dairy in between? How much are those in-between trips costing you? If you're still spending $100 on each in between trip (not hard to do), you've over budget.  
 
Also, are you spending cash, or debit, or credit card, or a bit of all the above? If you're spending from multiple method payments, it's extremely difficult to keep track of what you've spend unless you're keeping receipts and tracking it.  
 
Also, you will need to define what is "groceries". In our house, it's pretty much anything that gets bought at Superstore, not including things like clothing, housewares, etc. But it does include toilet paper, paper towels, laundry/dishwasher detergents, cleaning supplies, shampoo, etc. We lumped them together because we tend to buy them together. But if you want you want your $125 to be just "food", you will need to separate out the rest that you might buy on those trips.

keep in mind that budgets are moving targets. Ideally, you should be revisiting and tweeking them once a month, although most people can't do that. We aim for reviewing it quarterly. Don't set the budget now and expect it to "last" all year, because it will need review and adjustment on a regular basis.

Viv said "Yes groceries are definitely going to be one of my main areas of focus. I budget $500 for two people and I'm thinking that's likely high. If we worked at it and tried to hit more sales I'm thinking I could cut that number drastically. "

you can shave your budget by looking at sales and also what you [i]really [/i] need but also watch the small things, things like gum, or chocolate bar at the till, also dont go broke [i] saving[/i] money lol  
 
just remember watch the pennies and the dollars will come  
 
ps i disagree a budget should be done monthly or even quarterly, a budget should be done yearly with ALL items in the figuring imo then only adjusted if something changes, like you got a raise or lost your job maybe a larger purchase but those should be planned for in your initial budget really, not bought on a whim so yearly is often enough imho and i do mine around tax time every year

I have 2 banks with chg and saving accounts the one bank is for my major expenses like house insurance car mortgage etc the other bank is for living. my budget is looked at every time I spend and is based on my yearly spending plus the amount to be saved for extras .I use the program called quicken which I love as it keeps everything in its own category and does online for the banks so easy to transfer form savings to chq or vise versa can print out monthly expenses etc