Blogpost
Why you should budget
Do you want to buy a dream house and live debt free? Then you should budget! Budgeting is a great tool to save money and, more importantly, don’t waste it on useless things. I started budgeting a couple of months ago and it already helpt me a lot. But you probably wonder how you can start.
a free budgeting spreadsheet
First, you need to start to look at your income. What do you earn monthly? Why monthly? Most payments are made monthly when it comes to rent, housing, insurance, etc. You can start by filling in the BUDGET page in my free spreadsheet. You start with what you earn monthly and we go from there. Just download the template & take a copy! It is a free budgeting spreadsheet you can put to good use. Enjoy!
To budget we also need to look at all your expenses. To start with the fixed expenses, these are items where it is monthly the same amount of money often paid on a certain day. I highly recommend creating automatic transactions for these expenses. So you never miss a payment and don’t get fined.
Next up we will budget. Give yourself a budget for different categories like groceries, eating out, and what you would like as a category. Fill this all out in the spreadsheet.
the 20/30/50 rule
To end you can also pick an amount you want to save. For most households, they use the 20/30/50 rule. 50 (needs) 30 (wants) 20 (savings). Suppose you have any budget left I highly recommend either investing it or if you are saving for something like a house putting it into your savings. The bottom parts are automatic calculations. You don’t fill anything out there.
The one thing that is left to complete your budgeting is to fill out your expenses monthly from now on. That is how you see if you are on track and you can make adjustments on the go. Trust me the first few months are hard, I often still struggle today to stick to my budget. But you will get there!
