Believe it or not budgeting can be fun. Especially when you see the results such as an increased bank account or paying down a credit card or line of credit.
My wife and I have been recently trying out a new budgeting method we created ourselves that I have called per diem budgeting. It works like this.
Step 1 – Set your monthly budget for the most influential budgeting category or categories that you have control over. In our case we wanted to focus on our grocery budget, our Meat budget and our gluten free budget. (My wife can’t eat Gluten)
Step 2 – In Excel create a chart that breaks down your individual budgets into three columns. Per Diem, Amount Spent, and Balance. Then make enough rows for each day of the month. Ex. August has 31 days, so there will be 31 rows.
Step 3 – In each day of the per diem column put your per diem amount. If your budget is $500 and the month is August then you would divide $500 by 31 days to get a per diem amount of  $16.13 rounded.
Step 4 – Post the chart somewhere very visible in your home like your fridge so you can update it daily.
Step 5 – Fill it out daily by adding the new daily per diem amount to the balance and subtracting the amount spent. See my example below as to how to fill it out.
Step 6 – Save Money for more important things like paying off your house or saving for retirement!
Here is my excel sheet for those nerds like me. Grocery Limiter Tool
Randy Moore
http://www.rcmbooks.com