We have all had it happen. Maybe it was a New Year’s Resolution. Perhaps a job change or a move. Or you were just sick and tired of not having any money at the end of the month. Whatever it was, you told yourself:
I NEED A BUDGET…
AGAIN!
And this time, it was for real-like SERIOUS. You probably even followed up your resolve with a really good effort! It likely included some form of tracking your expenses and keeping receipts.
Then came…the end of the month!
Ha ha ha. Who are you kidding? You didn’t last until the end of the month!
It was more likely the middle of the month that saw you throw your hands up in the air. You can’t figure out what you bought at Target 12 days ago. You lost another receipt from Homegoods. Thank goodness Amazon receipts are all digital. Speaking of Amazon, your electronics shopping has already put you over budget for the month-AND THERE ARE ALMOST TWO WEEKS TO GO!
You get the point.
Budgeting is not for sissies! It was actually invented for warriors. Or people who love spreadsheets (Let’s be clear-I love spreadsheets, and budgeting garbage still happened to me! Ugh!) Under these circumstances, it’s a miracle anyone has EVER stuck to a budget.
Well…maybe the typical approach to budgeting is just plain WRONG!
Trust me; I’ve been there. Unfortunately, Mr. C and I spent several years without a written, detailed budget. Why? Because by the end of the month, things were an absolute mess. We were overspent here and there. We didn’t have every receipt. We couldn’t figure out how we managed to spend SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS AT COSTCO!?! (Can anyone even do that?)
We managed to avoid large-scale catastrophe, in part, because we didn’t have that much money to begin with (too many kids and degrees), and neither of us was comfortable with debt, particularity credit cards. So we simply didn’t spend. We were very careful to distinguish between needs and wants before we reached the check stand. Basically, we valued sleeping at night.
But who knew there would be life after graduate school? Suddenly there was more money than what our needs would require. We needed a plan for that money-and fast! Mr. C and I had always been on the same page (or close to it) when it came to money. Our money motto was simple and basic: STAY OUT OF DEBT.
But what about a surplus of money? He was ready to shed the poor college student lifestyle (and who wouldn’t be after almost a decade of graduate school?), and I was ready for plush retirement accounts. He wanted to pay off the mortgage, and I was eyeing investments.
Enter another long shot at budgeting…
But this time would be different, right? I hoped so!
Then came the epiphany–I couldn’t successfully budget because I was always biting off more than I could chew. Seriously! Why do we think we have to budget a whole month at a time? I can hardly remember if I went shoe shopping last week. How can I possibly keep track of spending for a WHOLE MONTH!?!
Drum roll please…
WEEKLY BUDGETS ROCK!
That’s right. You might get paid once a week, twice a month, once a month…I don’t care if you only get paid once a year! It’s time to budget for seven days ONLY.
Think about it-you can do almost anything for SEVEN DAYS.
There are two main reasons that weekly budgets work.
The first is that you can keep track of your spending if it is only for seven days.
The second reason this method of budgeting works is because there are very few things you can’t live without until the next week of cash influx to your budget.
For example, make a set day for grocery shopping. I go on Fridays. I take what I would typically spend in a month ($600 for seven of us) and divided it into four (or five if there are five Fridays that month). Usually, I have $150 to spend each week. I simply keep my grocery bill below that mark (grocery online order and pickup can work miracles in this department). Easy peasy. I just socked it to one of the worst budget-buster offenders in the universe. If I find I run out of something, I throw it in my virtual shopping cart (or you can write on a list) and know I can survive until the next Friday.
This situation plays out similarly across the budget categories. And you can do weekly budgets no matter your method-cash or digital.
Trust me, this works. I was recently reminded (BIG TIME) about how hard monthly budgets were. You see, we were really, REALLY busy last month. (I’m just trying to make excuses for our lax budgeting) So, yeah. We skipped our weekly budgets.
There, I said it.
By the time we met to do our budget, we had THREE WEEKS OF BUDGETS to go over.
IT WAS AWFUL.
What is usually a pretty chill, quick little meet turned into a never-ending nightmare. After about an hour and a half, we split with individual assignments and an appointment to meet back up in a day to finalize everything. There were receipts to find (I started forgetting to snap a pic-after all, budgets were a thing of the past!), phone calls to make, accounts to electronically link, and a subscription to cancel. We did some shopping for my parents and needed to tally it up. Mr. C also bought work-related items that needed to be submitted for reimbursement.
In the end, most things worked out, but the were a few transactions that we just had to take our best guess at assigning into the correct budget categories and move forward.
We vowed never to skip our weekly budget EVER again!
We usually sit down every Sunday and go over our spending from the previous week to make sure we stayed on track. This also helps us catch things like items that need to be returned or services we no longer need. Because we meet every week, these budget meetings are usually pretty quick and painless.
Whether you are single or working with a spouse/partner, make sure you budget every single week. No exceptions!
Whoa, wait a minute. I know what you are thinking:
What about bills that only come due ONCE A MONTH?
Glad you asked.
Lots of bills only come due once a month, so an overall budget for the month is necessary. But, monthly bills tend to be fixed and not up for negotiation. I can’t cut back on my mortgage payment, for example. It’s set and unless I move it’s not something that takes any thought on my part to budget. It’s just there. The same goes for most monthly bills.
If you are like most people, the real nitty-gritty of keeping costs down comes from smaller purchases throughout the week.
Those are the categories that benefit from budgets the most! Those are also the ones you want to do weekly budgets with.
Here is a good rule of thumb: If you spend money more than once a month in a particular category, it deserves a weekly budget allotment.
Not every week should look the same. Lots of monthly bills, like your rent, mortgage and car payment come due at the first of the month. The first weekly budget of each month is probably going to be a lot more involved because you are also going to tackle most of your monthly bills. We automate almost every monthly payment we have, but we still look over every deduction from our bank account every week and make sure our money is going where it is supposed to go and doing what we want it to do.
After you pay those monthly bills, you’ll have a better idea of how much money you can allocate towards other things, like date nights, that you spend money on each week.
You also might find that you tend to make one big shopping trip in a month, and then little trips throughout the rest of the month.
That’s alright!
Start by allocating a more considerable sum the week you do the more extensive shop. Then figure out how much you can spend on the leaner weeks. Just be careful to keep an eye on things every week. If you find yourself overspending, trying leveling your weekly spending a bit. I find it is usually much easier to stay on budget if I keep the shopping more level from week to week.
Just remember: For items you spend money on each week, like household goods and groceries, weekly budgeting is your best new friend!
So never again fall for the idea that a monthly budget is the way to go. It is too many days and too many shopping trips to keep track of. Then when you start running low on cash, you will inevitably want to give up if you aren’t close to the end of the month.
Ready for a budget to actually work?
It’s time to look at the next seven days.
Have you tried a weekly budget? Let me know how it went.
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