balancing budgets and budgeting styles

I've been keeping careful track of what I spend money on since about 2002. I've got an Excel spreadsheet format all worked out to my liking, and I try to enter receipts weekly (sometimes more often, oftentimes less). I think I miss some small cash expenses, but I generally have a very good idea of how I (now we) spend money.

For most of my relationship with Jon, I have been the money manager. We've been a 'financial unit' since about 2005. We're both responsible with money, but over the years we've learned that we have different strategies for managing it. Jon has little interest in my money management system, but developed a different system for our several months of travel abroad. We took all of our money allocated for our travel, divided it by the number of days we expected to travel, and came up with an average daily budget. Every day we entered our expenses and income and if we overspent, we watched our daily allowance go down. This system was great for knowing exactly how much money we had to work with.

This week we he and I have had some discussions about money. Our money is pretty complicated, and I'm the one keeping track of it closely. Jon is trying to save for a new computer and we're trying to save for our wedding in April. Both of us have to set aside money for taxes because it isn't taken out of our paychecks. We're making ends meet, but we're not able to save much once the bills are paid. We had to find a way for both of us to pay attention to our spending habits.

My approach would be to make an allowance for each major expense category (food in particular) and stick to it. Jon doesn't like this approach as much, so we've just re-implemented Jon's daily average system to be sure that we meet our spending and saving goals from paycheck to paycheck. Setting aside for rent and other known expenses, we've got $15.41 per day until December 2!

What's your system?

the Economy and the Academy

With all of the dire news about the state of the U.S. and world economies, I'm wondering how the academic readers of this blog are feeling the effects. How is it affecting you, your department, or your institution? How are you dealing with it?

If you're not really feeling the effects yet, what do you think might happen? Will you lose research funds? Ability to fill positions that lighten your load?

Food stamps?

Breena Ronan has an excellent post at Who doesn't love roses questioning if it's legit for grad students to supplement their stipends with public assistance. Go check it out!

cheap food via Amanda

Hi Everyone! Here's a link to get us started this semester. Food is a pretty unavoidable cost, even as a grad student!

Fees, Textbooks, Supplies, Oh My!

So classes are starting back again. That also means it's bill-paying time!

Various schools have all sorts of fees, an increasing trend as the price of college at state-supported school climbs. They have to do something to keep the "tuition" down, so let's have a bunch of mandatory fees. Some fees fall under the usual suspects: technology fee, student activities fee, health services fee, lab fee, etc. Other fees fall under the "you've got to be kidding me" category. I recently heard about a fee called the "graduate student differential fee." Also, sometimes graduate assistantships cover fees, but the key word there is "sometimes."

Textbooks can be another thorn in a student's side. I think my worst semester of damages was $700 for books alone. (Yes. the joys of taking 4 engineering classes at a time....)

School supplies fall under the category of "highly consumable and/or misplace-able."

I generally approach the crazy "Back to School" budgeting using every trick in the trade to develop a good estimate so I can siphon my funds off into a designated account in the previous semester.

Questions for the comment leavers:

• The most ridiculous fee ever
• Favorite ways to minimize textbook and supply expenses
• Creating your "Back to School" budget
  

Moving season

This is the fourth August in a row that I've moved. There are so many people moving around this time of year! Each time you move, it gives you an opportunity to evaluate your possessions and get rid of things you no longer want or need. As a poor academic, you benefit from this process in two ways:

1. You can sell some of the things you don't need anymore at a yard sale or on craigslist, or you can give them away.
2. You can get 'new' things that other people have cast off during the moving process, sometimes for free.

If you're looking for a new piece of furniture, bed, rug, or kitchenware, this is a great time of year to get it free or cheap. Moving can be very stressful and sometimes people just have to give away great stuff because they can't deal with moving or selling it.

Moving into a new place and missing important pieces of furniture? You don't have to spend hundreds at IKEA furnishing your new place, because most likely you can find all of the same furniture second-hand on craigslist for a fraction of the cost.

Check out my earlier post on Getting the most out of craigslist to read about using RSS feeds to find listings for things you need. Happy moving!

Work Study

I had always assumed that federal work study money was only for undergrads. I always thought it was just a way to subsidize on-campus jobs. For example, a student whose family income is low enough for her to qualify for work study gets a job working in a lab (or the library, or cafeteria, or wherever) that pays say, $6/hour. The employer only has to pay something like $1.50 of that and the federal work study program pays the rest (at least, I think that's how it works).

But did you know you can get work study money as a grad student?

I personally have not applied for work study funds, but a number of my friends have. They submitted the FAFSA like you would as an undergrad. Since the total income from a grad stipend is low, they generally qualify for work study funds. My department handles this money by applying it to TA stipends. TAs in my department typically teach two lab sections for a 50% appointment. The department applies the work study money to half of the appointment. The TA ends up teaching just one section but receives the full stipend! It saves the department money and lightens the workload for the grad student.

This is my second-hand account of how it works at my school. Have any of you benefited from work study as grad students? How did it work for you?