I sort of already know, in that I am that accounting professional with a fondness for spreadsheets who budgets my entire life out by the week. Very rarely do I highlight each row associated with my horse to see that total, though, because I don’t need that psychological burden hahaha.
Really though, Guilherme has it. It’s not terribly difficult to set up on your own. My budget just consists of a whole bunch of rows starting with my salary, any mileage or other one-off payments that I get for things, and then it’s a mass of every “expense” I have, from the guaranteed monthly ones like car and credit card payments, board, etc., through all of the things that I try to set aside every time I get paid (money for vacations, emergency car maintenance, emergency vet bills, etc.) which are more subject to tweaking if I know I’ve got a big expense coming up.
When it comes to my horse budget, mine is pretty simple in that half of my monthly board comes out of each paycheck (so I usually have next month’s board set aside on the 15th of the previous month), slightly more than 1/3 of my usual farrier bill comes out (so that I’m always carrying a slight reserve in case pony unexpectedly throws a shoe or something like that), whatever percentage of his Platinum and California Trace is necessary to have the money set aside before I get billed for autoship, money for the wellness plan that our vet runs (flat fee up front in January covers all regular vaccinations, dewormings, etc., except for the farm call fee that we all split) and a little extra for any non-routine visits, and then a little bit for lessons (we’re only lessoning with my trainer once a month at the moment, so it’s not a ton out of each paycheck but I like to set it aside anyway).
I don’t really budget for my random horse-related purchases (other than the big ones, like saddles), but that’s just because all I wind up ordering with any regularity is Likit refills and Farrier’s Fix and those aren’t enough money to bother adding it to the spreadsheet (in my world, anyway, no judgment for anyone who does track those things too).
I spend roughly 13% of my gross income per month on my horse, 20% of the net, but I also have the luxury of not having a huge student loan balance, so my monthly budget calculations look a bit different than those of many 20-somethings, and I also board at a friend’s place that runs literally 50% or more cheaper than many other barns in the area. If I was at one of those, I’d probably be looking at close to 1/3 of my net income going to my horse every month, if not more, and that would be why I’m not at those places (and I also just like my friend and we have an excellent working business relationship, so there’s that too).
