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Your Complete Guide to Creating a Monthly Budget in 2020
Start Budgeting
Follow these simple steps and start Budgeting:
- Choose the right tool (Budgeting App, Excel sheet or Envelopes)
- Gather all information like your bank and investment account numbers, user id's, and passwords.
- Make a list of all your income sources and all your expenses.
- Share the important financial and budgeting details with your partner or spouse if applicable.
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Key Ideas
A Monthly Budget For Your Money
No matter how little or how much money you earn, creating a monthly budget is one of the most important aspects of managing your finances. What gets measured gets managed.
Having a budget doesn't stop you from spending money the way you want it to, but works like a partner to track your spending and allocating resources to help you reach your financial goals.
The Envelope System
The Envelope system is a way to track your variable expenses like food, entertainment, and drinks.
This method, preferably used weekly, allocates a certain amount in each category in labeled envelopes (food, drinks, movies, etc.). Once the envelope is empty, you are done spending in that category.
How to Create a Good Budget
The principles that make a good budget, something you can stick to:
- Being Realistic: Being too strict is a recipe for failure.
- Making Adjustments: A budget is not set in stone, but a fluid thing.
- A Team Sport: If you live with a partner or spouse, you have to agree mutually on how to budget the financials.
- Expect the Unexpected: Keep an emergency fund, ideally 3-6 months of necessary expenses.
- Budgeting the Expected: Certain upcoming expenses need to be budgeted in advance, like property tax, holiday shopping, etc.
Start Budgeting
Follow these simple steps and start Budgeting:
- Choose the right tool (Budgeting App, Excel sheet or Envelopes)
- Gather all information like your bank and investment account numbers, user id's, and passwords.
- Make a list of all your income sources and all your expenses.
- Share the important financial and budgeting details with your partner or spouse if applicable.
The 50/30/20 Rule
It breaks down your budget categories into three broad segments:
- 50%: Essential Expenses like housing, automobile expenses, groceries, insurance, utilities, etc.
- 30%: Discretionary Expenses (Non-essential) like Dining out, entertainment, drinks, etc.
- 20%: Financial Goals including mortgage, home, and educational savings.
If there is heavy credit-card debt, the financial goals should be 30% and non-essential spendings only 20%.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Budgeting = creating a plan to spend your money
Budgeting is simply balancing your expenses with your income.
It's a plan for the coordination of resources and expenditures. When you budget your money, there’s a desir...
How to create a budget
- Gather Some Financial Information: gather a detailed list of your income and expenses.
- Select a Budgeting Method: figure out how you’ll budget your money to meet your most pressing financial goals.
- Create Your Budget: tally up all your expenses and income to see where you stand and allocate expenses.
- Execute Your Plan: you can use a notebook, pen and paper, a spreadsheet or an online software.
- Reward Yourself: you can work a small percentage into your budget to treat yourself each month.
The 70:20:10 budgeting method
This method suggests that you allocate 70 percent of your income to expenses, 20 percent to savings, and the remaining 10 percent to debt.
70:20:10 may work for someone with a healthy emergency fund and minimal debt.
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What a Budget Does
As a personal financial planning tool, a written, monthly budget allows you to plan for how you'll spend and/or save your money each month and also keep track of your spending patterns.
Make a Budget in 6 Simple Steps
- Gather every financial statement you can (bank statements, investment accounts, recent utility bills).
- Record all of your sources of income.
- Create a list of monthly expenses.
- Break expenses into 2 categories: fixed and variable.
- Total your monthly income and monthly expenses.
- Make adjustments to expenses: If you have accurately identified and listed all of your expenses, the ultimate goal would be to have your income and expense columns to be equal.
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Making Your Budget Too Strict
Budget for the life you have. When you’re going through your budget and assigning spending categories, be realistic.
Don’t tell yourself you’ll never buy a single discretionary i...
Budgeting for a Life You Can’t Afford
This becomes a problem when you’re spending for a life you can’t afford. It puts pressure on your budget and encourages you to live in a paycheck to paycheck cycle.
Assess your financial situation, cut back on your expenses, prioritize your money goals, and then come up with a new spending plan.
Budgeting Without a Purpose
It’s hard to stick to a budget that doesn’t have a goal.
When there isn’t one, your budget becomes an afterthought rather than a spending plan to reach your financial goals.
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