15 Practical Budgeting Tips

[Music] hey everyone welcome to the rachel cruz show okay we're gonna dive into one of my favorite parts when it comes to talking about money and that is the budget yes i love budgeting and i couldn't always say that back in the day i hated it because i'm a spender my free spirit i didn't like it but now that i've been doing it for a long time you guys i have learned to love budgeting i really do it for me as a spender i always say it's like permission to spend it gives me the ability

to spend money without questioning it or guilt or shame and it just it feels good because i'm like okay i have control over my money and i work hard i come to work and make money and i'm like i want my money to go as far as possible i don't want to just look up every tax season and be like i made how much this year and where did it all go i don't want to live like that i want to be in control so budgeting is the thing that has helped me so so much

so how can it help you well what it is is it's an action plan and a clear picture month to month of where your money is going it helps you achieve your goals that you want it helps you again spending without guilt it just gives you a plan and lots of communication around what is going on with your money so let's dive into 15 budgeting tips for your daily life it's going to be a lot but i can't wait because this is going to be so so helpful for those of you that are like ugh

about budgeting or some of you that have tried you're like it's just not working so the very first tip is that i want you to create a budget to zero before the month begins which is called a zero based budget so before the month begins look at the next coming month and figure out okay how much money am i gonna make coming up and if you're on salary obviously this is really easy if your income is inconsistent it might be a little bit tougher but just kind of figure out on average okay this is what

we're gonna make and you're gonna list out all of your expenses including giving and saving and your goal is your income for the month minus everything that you plan to do with money equals zero so every dollar has a name the second thing you want to do is you want to budget together so this is true especially if you're married you want to be on at the same page with your spouse when you do this you guys you eliminate so many money fights money arguments disagreements because here's the plan like you've agreed before the movement

this is what we're gonna do so you know what's going on the communication there is already clear i mean it is so huge so not only on the money side but also as a couple when you talk about money you talk about more than just money you really do you talk about your life you talk about your dreams you talk about what's coming up in your calendar you talk about your fears you just end up talking about a lot so the unity that's created even by just doing a budget together every month is is massive

now if you're single i would say find someone in your life that you feel comfortable which again will kind of take a unique friend but someone that you feel comfortable sharing numbers with because you're like hey here's the deal here's here's kind of what's going on here are some of my goals that i have and just to help someone else you know be in it with you is very very helpful all right the third thing to do when it comes to your budgets is you want to budget every single month because every single month is

different so you're not going to just do a budget and say here's my budget every single month for the whole year you need to look every month and that means even pulling out your calendar to see okay what's going on are there birthday parties are we going on vacation is it back to school season we have to spend money you know on that are we going on vacation what is going on and then you're gonna be able to say okay we need to add some categories in this month's budget because of things happening call me

a nerd but this is one of my favorite parts because i love getting last month's budget if you use every dollar or budgeting you have you know this it just duplicates your budget from the current month to the next month so then you have to go in and kind of change stuff and i just like last month i know for us it was just like car repairs my blinker went out we had to do something with the oil the tight i mean it was just like car stuff so we had to add an extra little

line item in there and pull money from savings and have it in there but when i did my budget and we did the budget for this month i was like oh my gosh you can swipe right and delete that category and that means that much more money is left to budget it's just so exciting i love it i love going once a month i think it's so fun it's so fun so if you haven't tried it you need to try you need to check it out see if you have as much fun as i do

okay the fourth tip when it comes to budgeting is start with the most important categories first so here at ramsey solutions we always teach to give first giving needs to be part of your financial plan whether you are living paycheck to paycheck whether you are a billionaire i don't care where you are you want to be giving and i always tell people give a little until you can give a lot but there is something to be said when you give how it changes you and the whole lie that if i just had more money i

would give i'm telling you the more i've done this the more i realize this issue it's more about a heart issue than a math issue and so being able to say hey where are places that maybe i can cut some back to be able to give something so i would challenge you with this this is why i say it's always the first category in your budget is giving be giving something number two i would say is saving if there's something you're saving for especially if you're on baby step one and you're saving up your thousand

dollars um even baby step three and your emergency funds have saving in there as well and then you wanna do what's called your four walls which is food shelter utilities and transportation these are the four things that you absolutely have to have in your budget to survive right i don't want you getting behind on your mortgage i want you to have money for food so everything else okay that means anything else anything else means cable anything else means subscriptions anything else means debt anything else is off to the side but those are the most important

things no matter who you are that you want to take care of first and then from there you're gonna prioritize and say okay what else is left what do we have that we have to pay on what is the cell phone or the cable or the um the debt that we have to pay every month then you can kind of prioritize under that number five you want to help with your budget to pay off your debt so this is gonna be a big priority if you have already saved up your thousand dollars on baby step

one your next priority is to pay off your debt so if there's anything in your budget that you can cut out like out to eat maybe shopping clothes for the month you can cut out anything that you see okay i can cut this out of my budget to put any amount of money out of the budget take it out and throw it at the debt so i can pay off my debt as fast as possible number six don't be afraid to trim the budget so just like what i was saying do it you guys the

budget is gonna give you power you're gonna be able to see here's what i spend money on and maybe you have a little bit of a discipline moment where you say okay i don't need to spend this much on out i don't need to spend this much on shopping i don't need to spend this much on entertainment or whatever it is and there are places there that you can cut out and trim your budget and again some of this will be temporary you don't have to trim your budget for the rest of your life it's

really going to be for the times that you're saving up for your emergency fund and you're getting out of debt number seven make a schedule so this is gonna be helpful to know exactly when bills are due especially if you set up auto drafts and money is pulled out of your checking account to pay the bills you know exactly when the money is going to be out because this is going to be helpful if you're paid weekly bi-weekly or even twice a month you're able to set up to know when your income's coming in and

what bills are due number eight track your progress so have goals and say hey we want to be able to save x amount we want to pay off x amount of debt have some goals out there and when you make some small wins even if it's like my goal is to save a hundred dollars i just need to put 100 away this month i mean anything like that you guys that is a win because you have set a goal and you've accomplished it so celebrate those small wins number nine create a miscellaneous category so because

this is a zero-based budget again we've already planned that where every dollar is going if something unexpected comes in and you're like i was not expecting that 200 charge or 400 charge or 20 charge whatever it is you're like and you don't really have a place to put it have a miscellaneous category so stuff can go in there uh you can dip out of your emergency fund if you need to if it's an absolute emergency but hopefully that miscellaneous category again on your daily spending will be able to catch the things that you forget about

now if you look back over the few months and see okay the same things keep falling in the miscellaneous category then create a line item for it because you know what's happening so say hey here's the line item for that thing that keeps coming up that wasn't miscellaneous but now we're actually going to make it a line item number 10 cut up your credit cards use a debit card guys we can get into this rant real fast and i won't go deep in this hole but it's amazing how much not only do you spend on

a credit card but when you carry over your balance and you're paying interest if you're missing payments and it's late fees how much money you're spending on extra versus saying hey i'm just going to spend the money i have in my account and use a debit card number 11 use cash for the categories that you tend to overspend on so people are like this is kind of an old-school way of looking at it but this is very helpful even if it's one or two categories and you tend to overspend cash it out and have i

i have the rachel cruz wallets that has you know this whole system built in the envelope system because it is helpful it helps you stay accountable it helps you to know how much is in there and it really does especially if you're early on in budgeting it's going to help you through this process because also visually when the money's gone it's gone like you're done you're done spending and it's gonna help you stay accountable and again the rachel cruz wallet is a great tool to help with this it has four interior envelopes for different categories

it has ten slots for debit cards or gift cards there's a place to put your change uh you know your coins and stuff it's it's genuine leather it's soft it's beautiful comes in three different options of colors i love it so so much and i hope you guys too and we partnered with join which is an incredible organization out of india that gives fair trade jobs to people in vulnerable communities and it takes people off these terrible situations out of these terrible situations and gives them skills to be able to work and make money they're

incredible and i am obsessed with the wallet so i'll link it in the show notes and you can check it out all right number 12 if you don't like using paper with your budget like excel even or a yellow pad then do it online i mentioned every dollar earlier but it is it is the best budgeting tool out there you're able to sync it up with your checking account on every dollar plus you're able to have a login information and your spouse can have it too so that they have the app on their phone and

if you change stuff it changes on both you're able to talk about it it's so so helpful all right number 13 quit the comparisons this will help you keep your budget goals intact because it is easy to look at what everyone else has and when you do that you tend to overspend and bust the budget so put the blinders on look at your life your budgets your goals which again is number 14. set some goals you want to be able again no matter where you are i don't care if you're on baby step 7 or

your baby step one you want to have goals out there this is what's going to keep you motivated and your why to know why are you doing this have it out there again celebrate the wins but it'll help you stay motivated and last but not least number 15 give yourself some grace okay it's not gonna be perfect all the time there's gonna be some months oh man it just it just didn't work and you're having to change stuff every like every other day it feels like shifting categories all of it and get frustrating but i'm

telling you stick with it those first few months are the hardest i mean the first 90 days you guys it's gonna be hard i'm telling you but push through because once you get in the rhythm of it and you're like and you start actually winning with your money and you're going down the baby steps and you're getting out of debt you're doing all this i'm telling you it starts to happen it starts to become more and more natural now some of the places that is tough when it comes to budgeting is if you have an

inconsistent income so if you do have an inconsistent income like you freelance or maybe you're all in commission i would say budget on the lowest earning month that you can think of it's okay here's at the lowest what i'm probably going to make and then you want to list out your stuff in order we talked about this a little bit earlier remember it's get it's giving it's saving it's your four walls and then anything else underneath you're gonna prioritize because as the money comes in you want those top ones filled in first and then what

doesn't get to the bottom maybe that month it's not there but then if you have a great month the next month maybe the money flows all the way down but you want to be able to prioritize okay some of you are thinking maybe okay so how do i make a budget well one of the easiest ways is to download every dollar it's going to help you so much again there's a free version out there and it makes budgeting it makes tracking your expenses all of it so so easy so go to ramseysolutions.com every dollar and

what you're going to do are a couple of steps within it so step one is list your income for the month again think of your paycheck if you are gonna have a garage sale freelance job side hustle any money that's coming in you list it as your income step two is listing your expenses so we talked about this it's your giving you're saving your four walls like food shelter utilities and transportation and then you're gonna list out all of your other monthly expenses so again debt insurance entertainment clothes anything else underneath and then the third

step is subtract your income minus your expenses to equal zero and that is a zero based budget now if you have more money left over and you said oh well i you know i have more income coming in than i have allotted then take that extra money and put it to whatever baby step you're on so if you're saving up for your emergency fund or paying off debt put it there or if you're on baby steps four five six and seven and you're like hey we kind of doing up our lifestyle a little bit you

can do that too if you're in the negative and you say okay i have too much in the expensive side and not enough income you can either up your income if you get a side hustle or you have to lower your expenses you have to be able to cut back and say how do i live within my means my dad has said for years to act your way just right behind what you make and live on it live unless then you make this is a key part to winning with money and then the last step

is track your transactions this is the best way when it comes to winning with your budget overall that you know exactly where the money's going so if you go to the grocery store and in every dollar a little bubble will pop up and show how much you spent there and you can drag that little bubble up to groceries and every dollar does all the math for you which is awesome but you keep track of what is going on so that you're not overspending uh it helps you stay in line now remember with a budget it

is not to limit your freedom a budget is to give you freedom really a budget is the thing that is going to help you stay in the boundaries of your income know what's going on and you have a plan i think one of the biggest mistakes people make with their money is they're not intentional they just kind of live month to month and buy whatever and keep going and there's no plan there's no plan so a budget is going to help you stay on track so i hope you guys check out every dollar i hope

you check out the rachel cruz wallet because all these tools are here to help you win with your budget and ultimately take control of your money and create a life you love