Budgets Made Easy

There is an important lesson that took me into adulthood to learn: making and sticking to a budget.  I have been using this easy budget method for years.  It takes very little time each week to pay bills and I know weeks in advance what our financial standing is.  This is not something they teach kids in school, but I believe it should be.  It is also the first step in learning to save.

1.  Make a list of recurring monthly bills and their due dates.

2.  Make a list of each payday for a month (for us and most people this would be every Friday) and how much your paychecks are for each.

3.  Decide how much can be spent each payday on bills and how much money "living" for the week requires (including gas, food, entertainment and misc items)

4.  Begin adding to each week the bills that are due then and how much they are until you reach your maximum "bill" money for that week.  Do this for each week.  Any bills left without specific due dates can be added to a week that has bill funds available.

5.  There may be weeks with extra funds available after all the bills have a place in the budget.  In this case, I put those funds in our savings.  I also put extra monies including bonuses into the savings even if it is $25 or $50.  Before you know it this adds up quick!  It is much easier for me to keep an index card in the back of my checkbook marked "savings" that I keep track of that money and don't actually have to transfer it to a savings account.  If I actually had to transfer it, I probably wouldn't do it half of the time.  Our savings would be much smaller than it is. 

At the beginning of each month I make my list of bills and income and decide where they all go.  This way I know ahead of time if we will have extra money at a certain time of the month or not.  For the most part it stays the same from month to month with variations only for sporadic things like budgeting for property taxes or vacations or similar other things that don't occur every month.

This makes it very easy each week to sit down and reconcile the checkbook online and quickly pay the week's bills without having to decide each week what to pay!  It also makes it easier to have a budget that we can stick to.  Even when an unexpected expense comes up I can usually rearrange our budget a little or use some of the "savings" money from the index card I keep in the back (money that is actually in our checking account but separate so it is not spent!)

Budgeting can be easy!

Unbelievable Rules

I wanted to post an update to my recent post about our new adventure that would include being licensed to sell farm-raised meat from our home.  We recently were "inspected" if you want to call it that.  

First of all, a little background on the process: I spoke with the department of inspections and appeals to find out what was required to be able to sell meat from your home.  There is very little to absolutely no info on this available online unless your are actually producing the product yourself.  I was told you have to have a warehouse license and they emailed me an application, which included absolutely no instructions or requirements.

Secondly, in the past few months while attempting to "get everything ready", I made 2 more calls to the department in an attempt to obtain more info on any requirements and both times I was told that the only requirement is a working freezer separate from our own use products.

That was fine, we purchased a small freezer set up in our garage (this is what one gentleman at the dept. said most people do) on our farm and a couple weeks ago sent our application in with the $67.50 fee required for one year.  When I received our letter stating who our inspector was and his number, I called to set up the inspection.  I again asked if there were any specific requirements I should know to have in place for inspection.  He told me there wasn't much to it other than a working freezer.  Ok, fine.

He showed up last Monday, as expected, and was a less than friendly person right off the bat.  Secondly, he looked at the freezer and said his concern was that we use the garage for other uses such as parking cars! No kidding!  Don't most people?  About that time our dog (yellow lab) looked out the door to see who was here and the man said "you have pets?"  I said "yes, we do live on a farm and it's not like the dog will be in the freezer or the car touching the inside of it".  He probably thought I was being rude, but I was flabbergasted!!  He then stated that the freezer has to be in an area free of other activities and pets!!  I was in shock!  I darn near fell on the floor!  No wonder more people don't attempt to do this. 

Needless to say we flunked inspection for the time being and unless we build a "room" for the freezer by itself, will never pass. Don't get me wrong, because I do believe in food safety.  That being said, I think some of the rules are a little outrageous.  Also, if they would have told me the rules on one of the 4 times I spoke with them before sending the application and my fee, I wouldn't have even bothered.  Sounds to me like a way for them to make money without having to do much but show up once to say you are denied.

I am still a little steamed- ok I am a lot steamed- about the whole thing as I have spent $255 to date to get things ready and apply.  We are still mulling over whether or not it would be worth it at all to spend more money on the "room" and risk being denied again for some stupid reason.  And yes, I do think the reasons stated are just plain stupid.  I hate when people are not honest in the first place, which I feel is exactly what has happened here.

Not sure what regulations are like in other states, but I have heard that some don't have any at all for such ventures.  I will not let this setback get us down, but we have some more thinking to do as to what our next step will be.

Hope everyone has a great week as always!