How to Stick to a Budget

“Let’s talk about sex money, baby.”

Budgeting is aligning your money with your priorities. It has a bad reputation for being the favorite hobby of people who hate fun, but this article will convince you that budgeting is for cute and fun people like you. 😘

Life without a budget is akin to sailing without a map, everything is fine until you wake up on a beach wondering what happened to your lost communicator parts…

Surprised it took me this long to make an Animal Crossing reference. Waifu Arts

Alright, that analogy was a little dramatic and old-timey. Instead of sailing, just imagine driving somewhere without Google Maps. Learning to budget will get you where you need to go faster and with fewer wrong turns along the way.

In this article, I’ll impart the importance of keeping a budget. Then, I’ll share tools and habits so you will know how to stick to a budget. First, let me tell you why I love budgeting.

The Joy of Budgeting

Nobody searches “how to stick to a budget” when their life is going well and their coffers are overflowing. There was another dated reference. Coffers, if you are wondering, are a small strongbox for holding valuables. Nowadays we would say that you checked your bank account only to find another comma in your balance. Semantics aside, budgeting comes into our lives during critical money moments. More elegantly known as when shit hits the fan.

At twenty years old I over-drafted my account on a honeybun from 7-11. The shopkeeper stared at me while I fumbled, “But I just checked my account and there was money in it.” In fact, I was just at the ATM and checked my balance to see $3 in my account, but the fee for seeing my balance cost me $2.5. Bank of America awarded my folly with a $35 fine. Ouch. 

-$1 Dollar?

Living on the edge of destruction is incredibly stressful, and a budget will lift the weight from your shoulders. Luckily, I no longer overdraft my account on honeybuns. So please be reassured that you can keep reading the rest of the article. 

I’m done with my broke era. 💅

A budget unlocks joyful possibilities. You create categories for necessities so the important stuff gets paid, but you also know that you can afford to enjoy your vacation without worry. Setting aside money for fun stuff allows you to enjoy them guilt-free. No more hiding packages from your partner, Matt, in the basement so he doesn’t see them. So, I hope you will try this budgeting tool and then I’ll teach you how to stick to a budget.

Tools for Budgeting

I tried budgeting with Mint in the beginning, but it left me feeling defeated after every session. You log in only to see your insurmountable debt and how much you spent last month. Perhaps they have improved their interface, but luckily I discovered YNAB or You Need a Budget for short. 

I don’t have a deal with them. I’m just a YNABer and have hinted to many people in my old role at a credit union that they should pick this budgeting tool. This is a “zero-based” budgeting system, which means you take all the money you have and proactively assign it to a task. This method works much better than logging in to wince at last month’s spending with other apps. 

This service does cost a yearly fee, but it more than pays for itself.

You can always create your own budget in Excel or Google Sheets if you are the nerdy type. I created a rudimentary zero-based budget in Excel recently, and made it a free download here! 

You will need to learn if your spending is sustainable by using the 50/30/20 rule to audit your spending.

How to Stick to a Budget

Let’s face it, starting anything is easy. We all start well-intentioned projects in a bout of inspiration only to fall into the weariness of inaction. Being a budgeter takes practice and you only earn the title through action. Let me teach you a couple of tricks.

Nobody Budgets Alone

Community is the key to sticking to this unfamiliar habit. It’s incredibly powerful to have people to lean on when times are hard and motivating to celebrate wins together. I run a Discord Group because I am allergic to Facebook, but if the old FB is your jam you have the Fans of Ynab group.

Don’t underestimate the power of talking to friends and family about your money journey. They may want to join you for the ride. Money is taboo, so you’ll probably have to be the first one to bring up the topic.

Craft Your Daily Habit

A little budgeting a day goes a long way. Every morning I open my accounts and manually add my new transactions to YNAB. You can pull them in automatically, but I prefer to “do it by hand.” Doing a little bit every day takes out the stress of having a big monthly task that gets kicked down the road. 

If you are budgeting as a couple it can be a little tricky. So check out this article on how to manage your money if you don’t have joint accounts. 

Go Undercover as a Budgeter

Tell yourself that you are a budgeter and then tell your friends too. 

Seeing yourself in a different light makes all the difference. When I started working out more consistently, I had to tell myself that I was a weightlifter and someone who felt comfortable in the weight room. This works wonders for changing your perspective. You can make budgeting fun by coloring in this free chart as you go!

Categorizing your expenses

Let’s talk about the nitty-gritty of budgeting. This section is essentially the recipe of a cooking blog after my long rambling about my family history.

Going forward you will need to start categorizing your purchases. This will help you measure your spending and get an idea of where you are headed financially. Be as honest as possible, because this will be used later to find ways to mercilessly trim unneeded expenses from your life.

Rent/ Mortgage: Separate this out because it tends to be such a big chunk of income. 

Monthly Bills: Stuff that you pay for each month to stay warm and sane. This can include electricity, water, therapy etc… 

Savings & Investing: Treat this like an expense, because if you aren't contributing to this category, you are robbing your future self, and robbing an old person is just cruel.

Debt Payments: Debt sucks. You can trim from other areas to boost your payoff date and break those shackles.

Purchase Goals: Long-term goals like buying a house or a $5000 fursuit. We all have our priorities. 

Fun Money: Any budget that does not include realistic amounts for lattes and eating out is doomed to fail. This section will help you untie money and guilt if that is something you struggle with.

True Expenses: Something that you must pay for infrequently or yearly. This includes stuff like taking your cat to the vet or the eventual car breakdown. It pays to plan, as you can save a lot of money by paying for things yearly instead of monthly.  

Making Sense of Your Spending

My spending flow in a year, heavily [redacted]

You’ll be able to end up with an idea of where most of your money is going after categorizing everything.

The reason we categorize purchases as they come in is so we can look at monthly and yearly reports to get an idea of where we are headed. This step will really put you in a position to make some executive decisions about your life. Do you need to earn more to make ends meet? Do you have enough funds set aside for an emergency? Can you afford to spend more on things you care about by cutting out something you don’t?

Budgeting enables you to make informed decisions in your life. Want to know if you can afford a house? Run the numbers. 

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