My Ukrainian Budget

My Ukrainian Budget

Since early 2008, I left my parents place and started my own life with my own budget. 
The idea of budget somehow started in my mind earlier, probably in 2006, but since I was living with my parents, I could not call it My Budget, because I was paying only some portion of expenses and bills.
For four years (2008-2011) My Budget had a same look – it was not so complicated spreadsheet in MS Excel. It had my income, as well as my expenses, which were divided into next:

• Housing (all bills, including: electricity, water, gas and neighbor association fee, and rent itself)
• Groceries (all expenses for the food and groceries, that were consumed at home, plus alcohol & cigarettes)
• Household Expenses (toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc.)
• Relaxation (eating out, parties, clubs, vacation journeys)
• Transportation (even though I had no car, there were a lot of these for buses & taxes)
• Other (a big pile of everything, that could fit another five)

Two or three times per week, I’d get all my recites together & enter them into my spreadsheet, which usually was sitting in my flash drive & could be accessed from any computer. I would double check them with amount of money, which I had, and make some correction, if needed (very rare). It was (and is) a very good habit of mine, which I recommend to inherit! 
So, as it started in 2008, in 2009 I decided to encourage myself for some better saving habits and a sum of expenses per month was always compared to the same of the last period (last year). Also, I would try to reach a consistent amount spent on groceries – since it was wobbling from 499 (*) to 1838 per month. I tried to set a ridiculous goal – to spent only 200 on a food and failed miserably (but that’s when I got lowest amount - 499 - from). After all, 2009 was a start of a good basis for right spending habits, but compared to amount I spent in 2008, was ever worse (39,255 VS 36,544). Ha-ha.
2010 was a weird one. I set a goal of spending not more than 600 on a food and met it couple times (there even was one month, where I spent only 236!). I was comparing my expenses to two previous years. I was starting to see a bigger picture! I finally invested some money in my half-way finished property! If I would include costs of that investment (which I shouldn’t, because they were not expenses but investments, but little I knew about it back in the days), I spent 44,127 in a year.
And, at last, 2011 was a result of all that work – I set expenses goal/limits per each clause of expenses, which finally transformed My Budget into a planning tool it is today. Unfortunately (or fortunately??), I had so many unexpected expenses in that year – I got married, paid all fees to embassy, and bought tickets to USA (which were ridiculously expensive for me!) – that I ended up spending 102,512. Whoa!

(*) Of course, all these are Ukrainian money, but expenses level would be (even though it’s funny) almost same we have here (USA) now. I mean, a studio, that I was renting in 2009 was 800 per month. Bus was 2 per ride. A bottle of booze was about 40. Quite close, if not the same.

Whoa! Nowadays, I do my budget the same way - probably once a week. It looks much more complicated (it's still Excel though), than it was, but the Idea to Control Your Spending is the same. It started slow, and evolved a lot, but result is here. Finally.