At some point in our lives, we’ve all worried about money. Money has a big impact on our lives, and it’s easy to let your financial situation affect your mindset. If you have a good grasp on budgeting, you have the power to have a healthy mindset about money, and you can achieve financial success.
I want to start by explaining that money is limitless. There is enough for everyone, and earning money does not take away from anyone else. Wanting to be financially free does not mean that others must suffer. Often, our money mindset could be what is holding us back. Money is not a bad thing and shouldn’t be looked at as a negative thing. Let’s start manifesting the life you’ve been dreaming of.
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Your feelings towards money could be what’s holding you back from living the life you want to live financially. Try to analyze your feelings towards money and ask yourself if you have any negative feelings. Clearing those negative feelings will help you move forward with fewer restrictions and resentments.
Abundance affirmations are a great way to train your mind to have a positive money mindset.
Budgeting Introduction
Budgeting allows aligning your spending with your hopes and dreams. It is tough to know how you are doing and if you are on the right path unless you track your progress. Especially if you are prone to spending more than you make on credit cards, budgeting is a necessity. If you are like me, not having a budget would mean you would be spending way too much on food, going out to eat, drinks, and other crap you don’t need.
Why Having a Budget is Essential.
It is about having your money represent what is important to you. And no two budgets are going to be the same. When you start tracking where your money is going, you might be surprised by your spending. The key to having a budget is answering these questions:
- Does my spending match my long-term goals?
- If I have a partner, are we on the same page?
- Am I spending more than I make?
- Do I have enough for retirement, or am I behind where I want to be?
- Do I have an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses?
- Does my spending reflect where I want to be in 5, 10, or 20 years?
When you start budgeting, you might start questioning if you have enough or too much in specific categories. For example, we estimated $800/mo for our groceries budget (which includes things like toilet paper, dog food, etc. for a family of four).
We were thinking about increasing that to $900/mo when we get credit cards debt-free, but then we started to wonder if we could save money in this category. We decided to cut it back to $600/mo. By making larger meals where we had leftovers allowed us to freeze meals for the future, and limiting how much processed foods we buy, we are discovering that cutting back here was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
Reading other blogs, I am learning we could probably trim this down further… but that is a big maybe!
How we Manage our Monthly Budget.
There are lots of options as far as how to manage a budget. Each has its benefits and cons. I’ve tried several in the past, but have been using You Need a Budget (YNAB) for over three years, and we love it. YNAB has a lot of things I love. The key elements that make this successful for us:
- Auto pulls in transactions from our spending accounts to see how much money we have left in each category.
- Their mobile and website app allows you to add “pending” transactions before they go through for an updated look at any point.
- If you are trying to get out of debt, YNAB makes it easy to see all balances and how much debt you can pay off every month. We have auto payments set up with the correct amounts in each billing category for bills. Which means we should never be late on our monthly bills.
- If you read their articles, they recommend getting one month ahead of your budget. That will allow you to spend any of your monthly budget categories starting the 1st of the month. Going this route dramatically simplifies managing your budget, even though it can be a PITA to get there.
More Great Budgeting Apps
Mint
Mint is a top-rated budgeting app that allows you to keep track of everything quickly and easily. You can add your credit cards, bills, and financial goals onto the app and track them a month to month. It’s a very user-friendly app and has excellent reviews.
Zeta
Zeta is another excellent app that allows you to add multiple people to your budgeting app. What’s great about this budgeting app is that it’s FREE!
Budgeting with a Positive Mindset About Money
Now that we have a better grasp on how to budget let’s remember to try to think positively about money. Let go of resentments about money and the idea that money is something bad or hard to obtain. Clear your mind and believe in yourself and your ability to accomplish anything you set your mind to.
