Budgeting is the first step to meeting your financial goals. And whatever your financial situation, having a plan for your money is essential.
But that doesn’t mean that your budget needs to be complicated. You can make creating a budget downright simple!
After multiple months of blowing it with traditional line-item budgeting, I gave myself permission to do it my own way.No more120+ personal budget categoriesfor this lady!
So, if you are blowing traditional budgeting methods (like I did) with the endless categories and nitpicking, check out how to rock your own super simple budget!
Table of Contents
A Simple Way to Budget
Uncomplicated is the name of the game!
Tracking my expenses using this method has made my life infinitely easier and saves me so much time at my end of month meeting with my finances!
No more separatingout groceries from toilet paper. No more divvying up my receipt to try and figure out what categories were spent where.
It sends me into fits of anxiety just thinking about it.
I’m a mother of three small children. I barely have time to squeeze in a regular shower. I’m making it with Jesus and a can of Dry Shampoo every week, ya’ll!
With that in mind, I came up with a spending plan that lumped myexpenses into one of six budgeting categories.
SIX, ya’ll!
Super Simple Budget Categories
HOUSING
Any expense related to housing would go into this category. Below are some examples for reference.
- Rent/ Mortgage Payment
- Utilities (Water, Trash, Electricity, Sewer)
- Cable + Internet
- Maintenance
- Home Insurance
- Property Taxes
TRANSPORTATION
Any expense related to getting to and from places would go into this category.
- car payment
- auto insurance
- auto maintenance
- fuel
- parking/bus/rail expenses
CONSUMABLES
Expenses that get used up or consumed, go in this category. One of my biggest struggles, when I was using a traditional line-item budget, was accounting for my one-stop shopping trips. Consumables is the answer to that problem.
- Groceries
- Household expenses (toilet paper, detergent, paper towels, sponges, etc.)
- Eating Out
- Clothes
LIVING EXPENSES
This category is for everything else you are spending (most of which is discretionary spending)!
I know childcare can becrazyexpensive. My daughter only goes part-time two days a week, so this isn’t a huge expense for us, but if your child(ren) are going full-time, I might consider moving it to its own category if for no other reason than ease of tracking.
- Entertainment
- Personal Care (haircuts, manicures, pedicures, etc.)
- Insurance for Health Care
- Renters Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Childcare/ Educational Expenses
- Gym Memberships
SAVINGS
If you have been looking at any of my other posts on budgeting, you know that some other budgeting methods (like the 50/30/20 method for example) have savings and debt together as two sides of the same coin.
If you are a Dave Ramsey follower he recommends you set up your Emergency Fund of $1K and then push all other money into paying debt down.
You should decide for yourself what you think makes sense for your family.
- 401K
- IRA
- 529 Plan
- Emergency Fund
- Sinking Fund
DEBT
- Student Loans
- Credit Card
- Extra Debt Payoff
RELATED BUDGETING POSTS:
- Zero Based Budgeting
- The Cash Envelope System
- The 50/30/20 Budgeting System
How to Set Up Your Simple Monthly Budget
STEP ONE: Calculate Your After- Tax Income
Calculate how much money you have left over after taxes, social security, Medicare, etc. If you have automatic deductions for things like health insurance or your 401 K, add those back in so you start with your correct monthly income.
STEP TWO: List Your Expenses
The easiest place to start is with your fixed expenses (regularly occurring bills). Your mortgage or rent payment, car insurance, cell phone bill, cable, internet, etc.
Next, I’d list your other living expenses, debt payments, and savings goals.
STEP THREE: Assign Expenses to a Category
Now, file your list of expenses into one of the six categories.
STEP FOUR: Automate Where You Can
I am absolutely all about working smarter, not harder. We live in a time where you can automateall kinds of stuff.
You can have savings automatically withdrawn, bills automatically paid– it’s the best thing since sliced bread!
Take advantage of this ‘easy button’.
If you want to make saving money easy, set up your savings to automatically be withdrawn from your paycheck– you are far less likely to miss it than if you have to do it yourself.
The other side benefit is that you are much less likely to be late on paying your bills.
One last time, with feeling (!)– automate it!
STEP FIVE: Track Your Expenses
A budget is amazing, but it won’t mean anything if you spend money and don’t know where it’s going.
There are tons of really great ways to track your expenses. Whether it’s a pen and paper, a spreadsheet, or budgeting apps and software. You need to know where your money is going!
I’m a huge fan of having a weekly budget! It’s far, far easier to correct your course 1/4 of the way into the month than it is once the month is over! If you have not been super diligent about tracking your spending before– you are in for an eye-opening experience I’m sure.
The first month we really started tracking everything, I realized that we were wayoverspending our budget for eating out. All of those coffees in the morning, the stops for a quick snack here and there added up quite an eye-opening sum of money.
Bottom line, planning what you want to spend is half the battle. The other half of it is sticking to the plan!
I would love to hear about how your budgeting is going for you– please comment below!
