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We spend $100 a week for groceries and sometimes that means DH packs pb&j or left overs for work. We have pretty normal meals for budgeting. Along with that I plan every meal during the week. We have a fun budget of $100 every two weeks. We put $1000 in savings aside every month and anything we have left over we spend on the kids clothes or pay extra on our loans (mortgage, cars and a personal loan).

Oh and $100 for gas every two weeks too. We try not to buy anything extra like coffee or toys, etc. I don't use an app but just my notes on my phone. I'm constantly checking our account to regulate what comes out. We always try to have extra in our checking in the case of the unexpected, we'd rather not touch our savings.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I took a couple of months where I tracked everything I spent. I looked at how much of that we really needed and how much we didn't and we made a budget based off that assessment.

@HLK208: some might call me cheap ;). Either way, I just see that for our family we'd rather not spend any money needlessly and when we do spen it, we try to be very intentional about it... (good example is that we bought our dream home).

We use a spreadsheet with all our budget categories and DH updates it every couple of days. Its down to the penny. When a category is out of money, its out. Period. We went through the Dave Ramsey budgeting course together when we were engaged and it works really well for us.

@HLK208: hahah aww I feel awesome that you said that!

@Mrs. Jacks: I'm def cheap and damn proud of it!! It's how my mama raised me! We were poor. Young immigrant family so I saw my mom pinch pennies .

@looch: we do something very similar.

We get fun money each month and when it's out, it's out. dH gets $80, I get $40 and LO gets $50. And before people get into a twist about why DH gets more I set it up that way!

@locavore_mama: That was us too. Every penny we had went back into my dad's business. I try to carry that same mentality with me day to day. Mr. Jacks was a spender coming into this relationship, so we are a great balance for each other. If it were up to me, we'd be extremely spartan. My depression era grandfather also had a huge influence on me. He always said that you never know when the next rainy day will be upon us.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: Want me to send you an excel of how we budget? When it is tight I literally save every receipt. I did it for years. We're going to have to start again. Usually once we get the hang of the current budget we stop tracking exactly unless something goes wrong.

@pastemoo: Would you be willing to send me the spreadsheet? We really need to budget but I also don't know where to start. I can write my email on your wall (since I am pretty sure I can delete it).

ETA- to the op Good luck!!!

@autumnlove: haha nope but he buys beer and wine. Alcohol is not part of our food budget unless it's for like a family dinner or party. I don't typically drink. So I gave him a little extra for the booze on top of lunch emergencies and stopping for a coffee.

@grizz: We do the same! The Dave Ramsey books/course were in line with what I was already doing, so they helped teach us a few new ways to streamline even more.

For us, it's a very detailed spreadsheet budget and a mix of using direct withdrawals for fixed costs, credit cards only to buy gas (so we can easily track it monthly), and cash for groceries/dining out and our fun money each month. The first few months we tracked our spending very closely (online checking/debit) and shifted our categories until things were where we wanted them.

It was a PITA to start, honestly, but by the 3rd month it was humming along and saving us a LOT in "lost money."

@cheesetomywhine: I have an email set up for exactly this reason. pastemoo at gmail.com. Email me I will forward it to my regular account and sent you the excel sheet. It's the 2003 format (OLD).

Our budget is my baby. I have a HUGEEEE post on my blog (link in profile- just search budget it should come up) and have made budget templates for a few bees even. To answer your questions:

How do I know how much to budget for groceries? Do I save receipts to make sure I don't go over? What happens if you go over and you're out of food? - We do cash each week for groceries, gas, and our personal spending. Groceries is my baby so if I go over, it comes out of my money. DH does most of the driving, so same with him- he can't go over on gas or he pays. Although we do have conversations about it- when I got pregnant and was ravenous we increased our grocery budget, lol.

Do you budget all of your money? Or do you leave a couple hundred unaccounted for to make sure you don't go over? We made sure to save $1000 for emergencies. We have a separate bills checking account (AMAZING IDEA- it's in my blog post) that we throw our extra money in, and pay bills out of. I keep a spreadsheet with what's in there. Usually we have between $50-$300 extra in there for more last minute type needs. We do try to budget down to $0 (we leave $10+ in our checking because of tolls - they come out $10 at a time.) DH is paid hourly so his pay changes so we have to be flexible.

How do you track your budget? In an app? On a piece of paper? I need something tangible to hold me accountable. I don't even know how to SET a budget. What makes it official? Do I write it down somewhere (clueless)? It's in the post too- I have a excel spreadsheet I keep in google documents. I have to check it before each month and make sure the payments line up with the dates and don't go "red," but it then tells me what bills to pay each payday and where the money needs to go. No thinking necessary on payday. It's blissful.

How much fun money do you get? A certain % of what's left over every month? We decided on $40 each a week. This is what we use for clothing, meals out (unless we have extra in bills account and decide together it's ok to spend it, it's more like for if I stop at Subway on the way home, etc), and any other stuff we need to spend on. I've been saving up for a haircut right now I just keep stopping my pregnant butt at Subway and blowing my $!

Feel free to DM me if you have questions. I'm really passionate about this and WISH I had done it years ago. We'd be SO much further ahead in our financial goals if I had.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I second mint.com. It's absolutely free. I've been using it for 5 years, and it really helps!

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I definitely don't judge! I'm heading to bed now, but I'll be sure to come back or pm you tomorrow. We were AMAZED at how we just frittered $ away with snacks, coffee, iTunes, etc. and switching to $125 cash at the beginning of the month made us quickly realize how we each blew $ without knowing. I'll be sure to pm you and I can send you a template of our budget. It's those tiny, sneaky categories that were sucking us dry at first.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: i really wanted to respond to this thread but had my hands full this weekend with the two LO's! you've gotten some wonderful advice already, but i'll just chime in with my 2 cents since i was clueless about budgeting too until we finally buckled down and took a good look at our finances.

when we first started budgeting, we used an excel sheet that i created (you can find it embedded in this blog post - http://www.hellobee.com/2012/07/27/how-the-high-heelers-budget/

we started off by doing a brain dump of every single expense we could think of, then we separated that out even further with fixed expenses and variable expenses. fixed expenses are easy to determine because you just need to look at your bills each month to get a good idea. variable expenses take a bit more guesswork, and i would recommend you spend a month or two just keeping track of all those expenses by category and see how much you actually spend (these are things like groceries, retail, baby clothes, eating out, etc). once you see those numbers on paper it'll give you a better idea on what to budget per category.

i don't use an excel spreadsheet anymore, though i'm still really proud of the one i made. i now use ynab, and it has changed my life. i am so obsessed with it. like @tarabonno: mentioned above, saving is addicting. the biggest thing budgeting taught me is to 2nd guess my purchases, and to scrutinize prices more closely. i used to shop based on convenience, but now i shop where the sales are and scour the weekly grocery ads to find the best deals.

to answer the questions in your original post:

How do I know how much to budget for groceries? Do I save receipts to make sure I don't go over? What happens if you go over and you're out of food?
when we first started budgeting, i underestimated our food needs and kept going in the red. that was SO frustrating and discouraging because i never felt like i could make it work. i finally took a step back and used this post to help me calculate our food needs for our family - http://www.hellobee.com/2012/07/06/monthly-food-budget/. i started with a more liberal plan and as we got better and better about our food (meal planning helped a lot! we used to eat out on a whim quite a bit cuz we had nothing to eat at home) we've since scaled back quite a bit on food.

i don't save receipts because i charge everything on my credit card, then i input my expenses into our ynab every other day. ynab has a smartphone app, so i can always check how much is left in a category at any given time. that really helps keep my purchases in check too.

if i go over my grocery/eating out categories, i pull money from one of our other categories that i call "luxury categories" (personal money, baby stuff, retail, etc). i just shift the money around somehow to make it work. it just means we have to spend less in another area.

Do you budget all of your money? Or do you leave a couple hundred unaccounted for to make sure you don't go over?
Yes, I budget all of it. This is rule #1 in the ynab philosophy - "give every dollar a job". I do have a category for "savings" too in our budget, so technically budgeting for savings is also giving that dollar a job.

How do you track your budget? In an app? On a piece of paper? I need something tangible to hold me accountable.
We track it through ynab. You download it onto your computer first, then you can download the free phone app that allows you to see your budget at the tip of your fingers.

I don't even know how to SET a budget. What makes it official? Do I write it down somewhere (clueless)?
First figure out your income for the month. Your budget needs to be below that amount so that your income can cover your expenses. Then list out all your expenses - start plugging in the numbers. Take a final look at what's in front of you... does your income match your expenses? Start tweaking and refining from there. Definitely write it down and start tracking it somewhere, whether its through an excel sheet, google docs, ynab, mint, or elsewhere.

How much fun money do you get? A certain % of what's left over every month?
We don't calculate it by percentage, we just look at how much money we have left after budgeting our fixed, mandatory expenses, and spread out the rest into different "luxury/variable expense categories".
Let's say I get $5000 income per month. Let's say we pay $2000 mortgage, $500 utilities, $500 groceries, $1000 childcare. That's $4000 that I HAVE to spend. That leaves $1000 left that I can play with or save.

Some examples of luxury categories in our budget would be - Dining/Eating out, Christmas, Retail shopping, Personal (His/Hers), Grooming. We would then assess what our month might look like and play around with the numbers within those categories. Also, define what is "fun money" to you guys. For us, it's clothes, gifts for our indiv friends, and personal shopping for our hobbies... but a friend of mine counts specialty drinks and gas in her fun money too.

The great thing about ynab is it believes in changing around the numbers to your budget to fit your needs in any given month, as long as it's within the parameters of your income. So some months I might budget only $50 for eating out whereas other months I might budget $150 for eating out (but I'd have to figure out what other category to take that money from). Sometimes life happens. It's hard to expect to have every month be identical, and your budget shouldn't be that way either.

So much of budgeting is like dieting. First, you write down everything you're eating so you get an idea of where those excess calories are coming from. Then once you figure that out, you start trimming that excess. Take it one step at a time. Focus on one category at first and take baby steps, then when you're ready, take it to the next level. With dieting, what sets people up for failure is when they take an all or nothing approach. It's healthier and more doable in the long run when you focus on one thing (ex: no more soda), then once you've mastered that one thing, go onto the next thing (ex: no carbs for dinner)... and soon you find that you don't even notice the lack. it doesn't become restrictive anymore, it becomes empowering as you take control of what's yours!

we did the same thing with our budget. the one area we focused on first was food because that was by far our largest expense and largest area of waste. once we got a handle of that, we started finding all these other ways to trim, and never looked back.

it's a lifestyle change for sure! and SO SORRY about this crazy long novel. if you have any other questions you can always wall me too!

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I bet if you tally up everything you guys spend on unnecessary items you will be shocked and appalled at how much money you're spending on coffee, beauty items, clpthes etc each month.

We are both pretty frugal and cheap and I was disgusted at how much money we threw away each money on coffee, lunch and takeout. And we ate takeout less than most!!!