Vintage Budgeting

Many of you have read Donna's blog at My 50s Year. She began an experiment in 2009 in which she "lived" in the year 1955. She continued on to 1956 (in 2010). I have followed her since she first began, but I had gotten behind on reading her posts lately.

This morning I was catching up and came across her post about Marketing. (Click to read.) She included a scan from an old magazine that said this:

"Budgeting is telling your money where to go--not telling you where it went. That is merely bookkeeping."

A few months ago I posted about a system called YNAB that is an electronic version of that very concept. When I was using it, it worked! Unfortunately, I fell back into my ways of just being a record keeper. Reading this quotation has motivated me to get this in order again.

We need to manage our money--or it will manage us. Money is not interested in making us prosper, either LOL! It's just a tool that we need to have in order to live. The more control we have over it, the more freedom to live.

The clipping continued with a plan for dividing the food money that I found intriguing. I'm going to give it a try this week and see how it pans out:

Use the Rule of Five for dividing your food money.

1. One-fifth for meats, fish, poultry.
2. One-fifth for dairy products--milk, butter, eggs, and cheese.
3. One-fifth for vegetables and fruits.
4. One-fifth for cereals--bread, flour, beans, etc.
5. One-fifth for sugar, shortening, salad oils, mayonnaise, condiments, spices, etc.

Doesn't that division of purchases look interesting? I can see how it might work, though I don't think I'd need that much for #5. If I do this, I will keep records and write a post.

I'm all for a bit of variety in this particular chore!