Hi friends! This year I’ve set a goal to set a monthly budget and track our spending better. My sister has been doing this with discipline for years, so I picked her brain and did a lot of my own research to build this calendar plan for myself, but I figured I’d share since some of you might be in the same boat.
If there is anything I learned from my economics degree at Smith College, it’s the beauty of compounding interest. Save early and often, and you’ll be amazed at what a few thousand dollars will be worth in 40 years when you hit retirement.
So how do we all save more? BUDGETING!! Living within your budget is very important so you can save as much money as possible every year. We all have goals to buy a new house, save for our kid’s college, get a new car, etc., and you can only do this if you set spending limits and goals to achieve it.
The tool that we are using is called EveryDollar. It’s free (!) and does an incredible job of helping you set and manage your budget. I love that their app focuses on a zero budget — so income, minus all your expenses, minus giving and saving. It might sound complicated, but trust me, this app makes it easy and becomes intuitive almost immediately!
Our calendar plan will help you build your budgeting muscle. First, we’ll remind you monthly to set your budget, and then we’ll remind you weekly to track your spending so that you live within your budget. Finally, we’ll remind you monthly to look at all your subscriptions so that you can actively manage those and save as much money as possible.
While this process can feel intimidating and maybe limiting at first, don’t let that feeling overwhelm you. Push through! And the goal (at first) isn’t perfection; it’s progress. Let’s get a handle on where we spend our money and our monthly burn rate and then appropriately manage the categories we can control to save more and continue building our wealth. We got this!!
Let’s build wealth and win financially!
— Dave Ramsey
Leave a Reply