Meadbh
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2006
- Messages
- 11,401
Since ER I have analyzed spending by category at the end of every month on my customized spreadsheet. I do look at taxes. I started with an annual budget for each category, based on previous spending. Each year I tweak the budget based on experience, but I have not yet given myself a raise. I use my expense spreadsheet primarily for planning. I find that for the most part, categories balance each other out over the year. Clothing and tuition are two categories that I greatly overestimated. One year I had a larger tax bill due to unexpected income, so I cut back on travel. So I guess I use the data for guidance rather than for control.
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