I hope that you took the time to read the previous blog about understanding your financial habits. If you didn’t, please refer back to this before continuing with this post: Understanding Your Financial Habits With Your Mental Health.

We are moving on to budgeting. Budgeting is really a negative word and everyone hates it when people suggest this. Budgeting is time-consuming and tedious. We are also having to look at our spending which, as we covered in the previous blog post, doesn’t invoke the nicest emotions that we want to be comfortable with. So it is super important to walk into this budgeting plan you are creating with the mindset of, “I don’t have to say no to myself.” Crazy concept, I know. We are all wrapped up with this idea that budgeting tells us “no” we can’t have this when really we have to look at how we want to spend our money. Our budget is working for us, not us for it.

There are a ton of different budgeting methods out there and I will post links to do different ones at the bottom of this blog but what I want to focus on is your spending habits and how they impact our budget. Our mental health and emotions are always playing on our spending habits so understanding how they fit into our budget is super helpful.
So after you decide which budget method you are doing and you are now left with the “leftover money”, “fun money”, or “not allotted for money” I want you to think about how do you plan on creating intention with this money. It may be a little or a lot but either way, if you don’t set an intention for it and you want it to just “sit in the account” for a “just in case”, YOU WILL SPEND IT.

So going back to the idea that you don’t have to say “no” to yourself and the things you want. With budgeting for this “leftover money”, I want you to think about what you have planned for the week or month, depending on how far out your budget is. Are there special events coming up? Do you have anything planned? This might be a good time to get your calendar or your phone. Just write all these “fun” things down with the “budget” you plan on spending.

So if you are going to a concert, don’t just write down the tickets. Write down the gas to get there, the concessions, the t-shirt purchase, or the “after concert meal/drinks”. Remember to be honest with yourself and be predictable. You don’t have to say “no” to any of these things, you just have to budget for them. So if you are budgeting for all these things and find out you only have $20 leftover at the end of the week, you might want to reconsider how much you are spending at the concert. Another thing to consider when budgeting for special or rare events is the emotions attached to these events and how we may “over-spend” because we are “at the moment” or want to “remember the night.” Take this into consideration when budgeting and it is always better to over-budget than not enough.

So as you go through these different budgeting strategies, remember your spending habits. You want the budget method to work with your lifestyle and not the other way around. It may be super important, since you already have your phone and/or calendar out, to set intentional time each month or the week to go over your spending and budget.

Zero-based budget. Dave Ramsey: How to make a Zero-Based Budget https://www.ramseysolutions.com/budgeting/how-to-make-a-zero-based-budget

Pay-Yourself- First Budgeting. Business Insider: A pay-yourself-first budget is a simple way to amp up your savings. Here's how it works

https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/pay-yourself-first

Envelope System Budget. Dave Ramsey: Envelope System Explained

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/budgeting/envelope-system-explained

50/30/20 budget. Nerd Wallet: Budget Calculator

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/nerdwallet-budget-calculator

The ‘No’ Budget. Easy Budget Blog: THE GENIUS “NO BUDGET” METHOD TO MANAGE YOUR MONEY EACH MONTH

https://www.easybudgetblog.com/the-genius-no-budget-method-to-manage-your-money-each-month/

Software/Apps that Support Budgeting:

Quicken https://www.quicken.com/

Mint https://mint.intuit.com/