I am trying to come up with a budget, and wondering what main categories do people normally use? I know that it should be different for everyone depending on their spending and tracking etc, but I want to have as little categories to track as possible, and cannot come up with small number of solid categories, so was wondering how everyone categorizes their budgets to get some ideas...

Thanks!

If you want the smallest amount to track, your budgets not going to be very helpful to you

I have

Rent
power
dsl
cable (which we dont have during summer)
heating oil
gas
registration/insurance/maintance
groceries
orthodontist
FSA
bdays
christmas
school stuff (field trips, picture days etc)
major purchase - right now thats the account for a down payment on a car next year
savings 1- emergency savings
savings 2- long term
dunkin donuts- yup thats in there, 50 a pay period
clothes
entertainment

etc
etc

Brandy

All I have is

Rent
Utilities
Car Insurance
Car payment
Gas (Auto)
Groceries
Debt Repayment
Misc (this all stays in the checking account - its gifts, going out, entertainment, etc)
Emergency Savings Fund

Once all our debt is paid off in about 4 months that catagory will change to Long Term Savings

I would tell you but I have around 100 categories I use. Mostly because I want to break everything down to understand where I spend and don't need to. What I did was took the basic categories and then added one for each bill I get and also for each income source.

It is all in an excel spreadsheet I got off the internet and have very heavily modified. The thing is now about 3 megs.
Major ones are
Home Expenses:
Mortgage/Rent
Electricity
Gas/Oil
Water
Cable/Phone/Internet
Garbage
Sewer/Surface Water Management
Association
Improvements
Furnishings/Appliances
Lawn/Garden
Home Supplies
Maintenance

Daily Living:
Groceries
Personal Supplies
Clothing
Cleaning Services
Dining/Eating Out
Dry Cleaning
Salon/Barber
Liqour
Cigarettes
Soda
Work Lunches

Obligations:
Credit card 1-9
Loan 1-9

Once you buy a home like you are looking at doing, I think you will have about 20 categories. LOL

I don't own a house, and have more than 20.....I just hate the "misc" category....... you never know exactly whats going where

Brandy

Nope. Im simple minded. I will have - Mortgage (inc everything) instead of Rent. Having a ton of catagories confuses me.

I found the best way is to download your spending from your bank and cc's and put it into an excel sheet (or Quicken)

build your categories from there.

this also helps you be realistic about your spending and instead of a budget being a "wish list", it's a real working model of your spending. I recommend 3 months of downloads.