Tips on How to Budget Your Money

As we grow into adulthood, we must learn about budgeting our money. It is not something we are taught in school; we mainly learn from our parents or from other outside examples. Budgeting our money is extremely important, it can make all the difference in how we are set up for the future. Joey Armstrong provides some basic tips on how you can budget your money the right way.

Budgeting is one of the hottest topics in personal finance that everyone should know. Budgeting is all about how you will allocate all your money. It involves figuring out exactly how much you earn each month and where it’s going to go. Budgeting is not about being perfect, it is more about your progress, the review and implementation. In the beginning you might struggle a bit, and that is normal, but if you stay committed in time you will get better with budgeting. There is not one right way to budget your money, it is about finding a strategy that works best for you. Let’s look at some popular budgeting methods that people have had success with.

50/30/20 Budget

This is a percentage budgeting system that tells you, if you allocate 50% of your budget to needs such as housing, insurance, and transportation. 30% of your income goes toward wants, which can be eating out, shopping, travel, and more. Finally, 20% of your income goes toward savings and debt. This budgeting system is popular, but likely not ideal for people with significant debt to pay off.

Zero-based Budget

Using the Zero-based Budget, you plan your spending by taking your total monthly income and allocating it to budget categories until you have $0. The foundation of this system is that you find a job for every single dollar, even if that job is savings or debt payoff.

Pay Yourself First

The PYF budgeting method is also knows as reverse budgeting. By using this method, you figure out how much you want to pay yourself each month, meaning how much you want to put toward your savings and debt goals. After that, you can spend whatever is left.

Envelope System

The Envelope system can be used with any other budgeting method. Using this method, you have an envelope for each spending category. In each envelope is the cash available to spend for the current month. When the envelope is empty, you’re done spending in that department for the month.

Finally, let’s look at some budgeting apps for those of you who like to work off your phone. There are a variety of budgeting apps on the market that will help you plan your spending and track your expenses throughout the month. Some of the most popular budgeting apps on the market include Mint, EveryDollar, Personal Capital, and You Need a Budget. Any one of these apps are great for you to use to help you plan and track all your expenses. It will be a personal choice for whichever one you like best.