Creating a budget was one of the first things we did when we started getting serious about our finances. 

Confession: for many years, I didn’t have a formal budget. I knew when I got paid, made note of how much and then tried to keep track of it in my head. 

It worked well until we started getting serious about paying back debt. 

Our budget is a simple spreadsheet. No bells or whistles; just a document that outlines all our expenses and spending for the month.

Well. Most of our expenses.

There are five specific categories we skipped when creating our budget, even though we do spend money on them regularly. Here’s what we left out and what we do instead.