Now that I am 18 years old...almost 19. I've become very cautious of what I buy. I was reading some of the blogs I follow and stumbled upon
A Bowl Full of Lemons Budget Binder. After reading through the post I decided to make my own! Our binders are very different from each other because of our age difference and she owns a home + she's a mother. So with hers in mind I created my Budget Binder to my needs.
What you'll need to create a budget binder:
- 1" Binder (or whatever you prefer)
- Binder dividers (I used 5)
- A poly envelope
- Labeler or something to label the tabs
- Something to label the binder (I used stickers!)
For my budget binder I used a black 1" binder which I purchased at a Dollar Tree. The only downside to this binder is that it has no pockets. Still does the job though! I have a lot of binders in my room so I labeled my binder with stickers so I know what binder it is. My mom had these stickers with all of her craft stuff so I'm not sure where they are from. My best guess would be Micheal's Craft Store.
I decided to use 5 binder dividers. You can use as much as you need but 5 works best for me. I labeled them 1. Accounts, 2. Income, 3. Spending, 4. Monthly Budget, 5. Annual Expenses.
The first tab, Accounts, has all my information for my bank and other money related accounts. The Income tab has all my hour logs which tells me how much I made that week. In spending I have a paper for each month. Every time I purchase something I write it down (the date, how I purchased it, what store, how much). The monthly budget tab doesn't have anything in their since I don't have any bills to pay for at the moment. But I would have a calender to mark when a bill would be due and when I paid it. The last tab has all of my loan information. Keeping that information handy really helps so I don't forget about it.
Behind the tabs I have a poly envelope where I put deposit slips and things of that sort so they don't get lost. You can purchase a ploy envelope at the
Container Store for only $4. I'm not sure if the Dollar Tree still sells them but you can always go check though they are not as nice as the Container Store brand.
For receipts I use a plastic filing coupon organizer which I think purchased at
Walmart. You can probably find one where office supplies are sold. I file my receipts by month and then once the new year comes around I go through and discard the ones that don't need to be saved. I keep the majority of receipts I receive just in case.
