4 Tips to Stick to a Budget for Good!

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So what’s the hardest part of budgeting? Kind of like diet and exercise, the hardest part is sticking to it!

I think a lot of people when they think about budgeting, they’re automatically filled with dread and go “Ugh!” in their heads. It’s like it’s a dirty word, there are so many negative connotations with it and the whole concept of budgeting.

We feel about it the same as we do exercise. Some people love to hate it, you need to do it because it’s good for you and not because you like it, and can be one of the biggest factors in your long term health. In the case of budgeting, it’s for your financial (and possibly mental) health.

I have some tips for you that should help tone down the stress and help you become a budgeting boss!

Uncomplicate it

I think the easiest way to stick to a budget is to make it, well, easy! If you’ve read my more complex post about creating your budget, it may sound a little overwhelming, but only when you’re first creating your budget.

I’ll be referencing some of the things I discuss in that post so if you’re not sure what I’m talking about it, check it out here.

I want you to be detailed and anticipate expenses when first creating your budget. This is a help to those who haven’t made a budget before, or for those who have had budgets but they didn’t work out.

When you’ve figured out the details in your budget, your budget may look complicated and messy. So now let’s uncomplicate it by taking all those amounts and consolidating them into three spending categories: household expenses, groceries, and miscellaneous.

(Your savings or debt payments should already be in their place by the time you get to actually spending your money.)

If it’s not something for the house, if it’s not groceries, then it goes in the miscellaneous category. Your miscellaneous category will likely be bigger than the other two. It will have your budgeted amounts for haircuts, shopping, decorations, gifts, date nights, etc.

It feels a lot easier to only have to handle three, right?

Separate your money

Another way to help you stick to your budget is separating your money. You should read my full article here about separating your money so you can manage it successfully.

I talk about breaking out your expenses, like your fixed household bills (think mortgage), and then your fluctuating but recurring expenses (think utility bills) that are not the same every month. I recommend taking all these- your total budgeted amount for these expenses- and put that money into a specific account.

We call this the “bill payments” account. It doesn’t accumulate any extra money through the month, it should go to almost zero regularly. I have all the bills that I can auto-drafted from this account. Any checks I write will come out of this account. I never have to worry about there not being enough in there because I set it aside first.

Your grocery money should either be taken out in cash or placed in a separate account, also. This is the only category that I suggest having in cash, but you don’t have to do it that way. I only recommend it because groceries are an area where a lot of budgets get blown. This is still an area of my finances that I work on. If you have a limited amount to spend in cash, you’re not as likely to overspend. Overspending is always easy to do if you are using a credit card instead of the hard stop you get with cash.

You could try starting out with cash until you develop the recipes and habits of sticking to a certain amount, then you could go back to using a card if you’re like me and frequently lose cash. :/

When you put your money in these buckets- like the money for your mortgage and utilities, your savings, etc.- all you’re left to spend outside of that is the miscellaneous spending category!

You should still track your spending according to the detailed categories you made, especially if you’re new to budgeting. You don’t want to overspend on random shopping and then not have enough money for a haircut or date nights. Eventually, you’re spending habits will change as you stick to this process and you won’t have to track the details quite as much in the future.

Don’t forget about separating your savings, too. Have different accounts or another way to track how much you’re saving for different things, like vacation, holidays, back-to-school shopping, and things like that.

Budget for shorter time periods

Do you have an irregular income? Do you get paid on the 5th and 20th? Or do you get paid just monthly? This can make it a little difficult to execute your well laid plans.

For those who get paid every other week, I think they have it easiest. Do look at the month in front of you for holidays, birthdays, etc. that you need to budget for, but then break down that budget to fit in the bi-weekly increments of when you receive your pay. You can count on these paychecks every other Friday and they’re presumably going to be the same amount if you’ve reached your 40 hours per week.

If you have an irregular income, like someone on a commission, I would first average out what you normally earn. Be conservative and estimate low. Then, in the instances where you receive more than your average, you can just contribute more to savings!

When you’ve figured out your average, I would break this down to a weekly budget. Especially since you have an irregular income, managing your budget week by week is going to be much less stressful than trying to manage it two weeks or even a month out.

Small chunks, people, small chunks.

For those who have those semi-monthly pay periods by date (commonly the 5th and 20th, or 1 and 15th), I feel for you. I’ve gone 17 days in between paychecks before because that’s how it falls some times, and it can be really tough when rent is due the 1st but you don’t get paid until the 5th. If you’re in this category, I can’t stress enough how important a budget is for you, and separating those dollars into different accounts.

Even when you’re paid semi-monthly, most of the time you’re getting a paycheck based on 80 hours. I would budget to that amount on a two-week basis. That way, when you have an 88- or 96-hour paycheck, that’s just bonus money for you! Add it to savings, pay extra to debt, buy that one thing you’ve been wanting, or just use it to have fun!

Be Flexible

Find a budget system that’s going to work for you. It may be a little trial and error at first, but you have to keep testing out different methods.

I truly believe it’s not one size fits all. I mean, yes, a budget is your income divvied up among all your expenses, debt payment, and/or savings, that’s the simple part. But the execution is where I think it gets a little tricky for some. That’s where you need to find what works best for you.

I hope you will find my tips helpful, and that they will help you stick to your budget for good!

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