Zero-Based Budgeting, Work-Style

I have taken for granted how long Cliff and I have been on a system of zero-based budgeting for our monthly income and expenses. Having dreamed and planned for a few months before we actually got married, we've been doing it this way since the day we said "I do." Sure, we've had a few bumps along the road but it's never really that difficult for us to get to zero. Some expenses have been fixed for so long and we've had the freedom to increased certain areas that the bottom line is never hard to find.

As for work, it's a totally different story. It's zero-based budgeting but for an entire year. And not only that, but I can only guess and estimate (or simply, guesstimate) so much about what will be done in the next fiscal year (which starts in my biggest expense month... June) based on what's been done in this current year. Not to mention, the paper trail has been sometimes really difficult to follow.

But I've been plugging and chugging and dreaming and envisioning and cutting and padding and researching and crying and pulling my hair and drinking too much coffee and spending more time on Excel than I thought was humanly possible and I've finally done it. I've gotten down to zero while staying flat and making the huge chunk of money I get to work with next year... well... making it work for me and for the students and for the betterment of the institution.

And goodness knows how glad I am that in the world of personal finance, what Cliff and I choose to do with our money affects just the two of us and not nearly fourteen-hundred incoming students, as well as their parents, plus a little more than a hundred student leaders. (And here is where I pause for just a moment and freak-out at the gravity of what I've gotten myself into...) And that we get to reconstruct every month if we'd like to... and not once a year.

Oh, and did I happen to mention that this is just the first round of tweaking in the budget preparation process that happens as we get closer to June 1? Here we go!