Welcome to part 2 of the Master Your Budget series!
I am so excited you are here and I am hopeful that this series helps you gain more confidence in managing your budget and answers some questions you may have about income, debt, savings, and expenses.
If you don’t know, I am a married twenty-something that has lived through all kinds of financial situations in a short amount of time. Check out my YouTube video over part 1 where I give you a background of where I started, how I’ve learned the processes we use now as a family, and where I set you up for part 2 & 3 of this series!
Read part 1 of the Master Your Budget series here.
A quick recap: I went from my parents taking care of all of my expenses through high school, to them weaning me off in college when I started working part time while I was in school full-time, to then hitting grad school and having my own budget and bills to getting married and combining income with my hubby!
I am so thankful for my parents teaching and talking money with me so I could use that knowledge in my adult life and bring healthy feelings and experiences about budgeting and money into my marriage. I honestly don’t know if I could have done it if it weren’t for them showing me the way.
I am a firm believer that we were put on this earth to share the knowledge and experiences we have to hopefully one day help someone through their journey. So, that’s where the Master Your Budget series came from and here we are💛
In part 2, we are talking all about debt and savings!
Let’s get started…
Debt
Debt is a scary thing. Not only is it really crappy to be put in a place where you have to borrow money, but its even worse when you can’t pay it back right away and have to live with the reminder floating in the back of your mind.
I want you to remember that you are not a bad person if you have debt, and it is a solvable situation. What’s not okay is never paying back the money you owe or going into paying it back blind…you always want to have a plan!
Debt can be from any number of things, and in our personal experience we have frequently been set up on or set ourselves up on a payment plan to pay it back as quickly as we can without straining our monthly budget.
If your debt doesn’t have an option for a payment plan, the easiest thing you can do is:
- get the total amount you owe
- ask about the timeframe it has to be paid back in or give yourself a timeframe if there isn’t one
- calculate what your monthly payment is per month for the duration of the timeframe
- look at your budget and see if you need to move anything around or how you can add it into the bills you are already paying
After you do your due diligence of making a plan, you can start tracking how long you have until it is paid off! Always make it a big deal and celebrate when you pay something off, because it is a big deal! Plan a special dinner or have some friends/family over for a game night…do something you enjoy to celebrate the milestone, no matter how big or small.
Now, let’s talk…
Savings
There are two people in this world: savers and spenders…and if they are lucky, they marry each other!😂
Seriously, it’s the perfect situation because (ideally) there will be compromise on both ends and there will be money tucked away for a rainy day and some set aside for fun things!
In our marriage, I am definitely the spender and Cory is the biggest saver I have ever met. There are positives and negatives on both sides, but thankfully we have learned how to work together! If you find yourself in this situation within your relationship, have an honest conversation about where you are both coming from and how you can compromise…and then stick to it.
When it comes to building a savings account, there are so many different ways to do it. I am not going to go into detail about all of the different accounts and what you “should” do, but I am going to share with you how we do it and you can try it if you think it would work for you, too!
We have 2 accounts that we navigate from. One account is the primary account that we pay out of, and one is our “savings”. Both are checking accounts which are linked together so we can move money around easily if we need to. One is meant for holding, one is meant for spending and we have a monthly goal of how much we save in our spending account to move to our holding account.
I have heard so many times that you need to make building your savings a bill…and I LOVE that concept. When you get paid, you pay yourself (whatever amount you choose) and you put it into your savings account so it is a for sure thing that you are putting money aside every month.
I hope that we can start implementing this into our budget soon, but for now we just put any remaining money at the end of the month in our “holding” account and call it good. It is not the best system as some months don’t have any left over (hello teacher/para salary), but it has worked most of the time for us and it’s what we can handle right now. As our budget grows, so will our methods, but for now we are proud of where we are at and how we have done!
If you aren’t in a place where you can pay yourself yet, maybe start with $10 at a time. Instead of going out multiple times a week, cook at home and put that money away, or don’t go out over the weekend. Whatever it is, you need to make that goal for yourself and where you are at in life at the moment!
Check out my monthly meal planner that will help you save $$$ and set you up to have every breakfast, lunch, and dinner planned on a budget for an entire month!
Maybe start with a weekly goal…$10 a week is $40 a month.
$40 a month is $480 a year.
$50 a month is $600.
$100 a month is $1200.
Make a goal and make a promise to yourself to stick to it!
Any money you save is amazing…we all have to start somewhere and it’s not an overnight thing. Be patient with yourself and proud of where you are at!
Here’s how you start…
- Gather the information on your total debt.
- Create a pay-off timeline of what your payments are monthly and how long it will take you to pay off your debt.
- Create a savings goal per week/month/year- starting today, what is your goal for a month or year from now?
- Decide how you are going to house your savings: savings account, checking account, piggy bank, etc.
- Create your debt timeline and checklist where you can see it all the time and physically check it off any time you pay off a debt.
- Create your savings timeline and checklist where you can see it all the time and physically check it off any time you save weekly/monthly.
Here’s a preview of the worksheet to get you started!
Friends, I know that money is a tough subject and it can be hard to get a plan in place, but once you get started you will see that it is the best thing for yourself and your future!
Here’s to talkin’ money and making a plan🙌🏻
See you for part 3 soon!
