HOW TO Save Money This Holiday Season – DO THIS NOW
Tag: Financial Independence
Add These To Your Budget Now
Spring Budgeting Tips
What Do You Need To Budget?
Let’s be honest… I do not know of many people that like the word budget. Over time we have come to associate the word with being restrictive, bad, and associated with being broke. The thing is, none of that is true.
Simply put, a budget allows you to give your money something to do. You know, having awareness of where every dollar is going. It also provides you the flexibility to adjust as needed.
So, what do you need to budget? The answer is quite simple.
- Your outgoing expenses: bills, food, gas, savings, etc…
- You may want to start with a bank statement 🤷🏾♀️
- Your total income: from all resources
- Check this out: a notebook and something to write with
If that is it, then why is budgeting hard? I counter that with, is it hard or is that what we’ve been conditioned to think?
There’s Levels To This
Honestly, some of my best budgets have been done in a notebook or planner. However, society will have you thinking you need fancy apps, complicated Excel sheets, graphing calculators and your first born child.
No, no, no… just stop.
As mentioned above, you need to know what’s coming in (income) and what’s going out (expenses). There’s not any complicated math, addition and subtraction at most. See below for an example Simple budget.
Discipline
This is probably the hardest part of budgeting. Finding the discipline to do the budget and follow through with it. It’s hard because it requires a mindset shift. It requires you to say no to instant gratification, no to keeping up with the Jones, no to what you are used to.
It allows you to say yes to your freedom, yes to your future, yes to a better tomorrow.
Personal Experience
I have used:
- The Happy Planner Budget Planner
- The Budget Mom Planner
- An over complicated excel
- A Notebook (my fave)
- You Need a Budget App (another favorite)
- Every Dollar app (I like it)
To this day though, my go to is a notebook. Sometimes I use my iPad, but a simple notebook does it for me.
So…
I suggest you start simple using pen and paper to avoid getting overwhelmed. Feel free to try out the download below.
Why Do You Need To Save In 2022
Y’all, you not only need to save in 2022. We should have been saving in 2021, 2020, so on and so forth…
There are many reasons people do not save. Not enough room between paycheck and bills to save, never thought about saving, saving is a weird concept that only old people do… Whatever the case is, there is nothing wrong with saving. In fact, you need to save.
Why 2022 specifically? Because we are still in a pandemic, the employment market is volatile, the stock market (side eye, retirement plans) is volatile. It is still crazy out here in these financial streets.
I have talked about this before, but there are many reasons and ways to save. Let’s get to it…
Reasons:
Emergency– Just like it sounds like, when something unexpected comes up it is always nice to have money to keep from going into debt or into more into debt.
- I am thinking car issues, medical bills, blown appliance. I am not thinking Bath and Body Works sales, brunch dates, or random shopping.
How much money should be in your Emergency Savings? This is not a one size fit all answer. I personally do 6-9 months of expenses. Some will recommend 3-6, 10-12, or even 2 years plus. You know your situation. What is important is to start saving.
Retirement- Do you plan on working for the rest of your life? if not, you may want to save something toward the moment you decide to walk away from traditional work.
There are many tools to save for retirement. Your employer may offer a 401k with or without a match. You can open an IRA with a brokerage account. The 401k and IRA can be Traditional or Roth. You can have a normal brokerage account that you buy and hold assets in.
- Traditional- Before Taxes
- Roth- After Taxes
*** I will do another post that goes into detail about Retirement accounts***
Life and Upcoming Events
Do you plan on taking a vacation this summer? Are you saving for it? What about new, to you, car? Are you saving towards that? There are so many events that we can plan for with a little intentionality. Below are a few:
- College Savings
- House Down Payment
- Birthdays and Holidays
- Large purchases
These are just a few reasons why you should save. Whatever reason you have, just start. Easier said than done right? If you need help, check out my coaching and planning services.
How Did I Get Here?
Got a moment? Grab your choice of beverage and see how I got here.
If I had to name one thing that helped me get my house in order, it would be the questions of where and why? Where is our time going? Where is our money going? Why didn’t I know about this? How did I miss this? How are we going to do this? And the list could go on.
It was the winter of 2017 and something had to change. Through my Master’s program, I was offered financial preparedness which was based on Dave Ramsey’s principles. This led to the black hole of YouTube. I knew then, we had to get our house in order.
- I asked, “What are we doing and why?” – Were we keeping up with friends, just living in the now? We had to really look at what we wanted in life, now and in the future.
- I took an inventory of what we had and how we used it.
- We set goals and applied a why to those goals.
- We tracked everything coming in and going out.
- We made a plan.
- We changed our behavior.
- We evaluated what was important to us.
- We blocked out nay sayers
- WE TOOK ACTION
Five years ago, I did not think we would be where we are now. Is life perfect? No, but it is manageable and so much better. That is what I want you to know: it can get better and it does. We are not any different than you. We balance work and family everyday. Let me tell you, when it is done with intentionality, purpose, care, love, and most importantly with God; oh my, it is great!
We hope you stay along on this journey!