Budgeting Basics - iHeartBudgets

Budgeting Basics (Part 5): Your Savings Bucket

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Jacob

Don’t you hate it when you are cruisin’ along, rockin’ your awesome budget for the month and you get blindsided by unexpected expenses?! Thing like birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries pop up out of NOWHERE and surprise you! Now your perfectly normal month just got turned upside-down by all of these different occasions. I can’t believe the nerve of some people, being born and celebrating it on the SAME DAY, EVERY YEAR. What’s up with that? Anyway, if you find yourself in this situation, no need to fear, because you actually already planned for it. Wait…….you did plan for it……right? What Is A Savings Bucket? When you have an expense that does not re-occur every single month, you sometimes forget that it’s coming up and thereby you don’t have any money planned for that expense. Examples of these types of expenses are; Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, car maintenance, vacations and bills that … Continue reading →

Budgeting Basics (Part 4): Why You Should Get a Month Ahead

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Jacob

Of the many things I learned from Dave Ramsey, this is not one of them. This is something my mother-in-law suggested we do early in our marriage. She had been the single-parent of 3 children for over a decade at that point, and was (and still is!) an amazing budgeter. Since this is the only piece of financial advice she felt was important to impart to us before we started our life together, I knew to take heed and try to implement this as soon as possible. I would not hesitate to say that this has been the single most impactful decision we have ever made in terms of managing our money. Here’s why: We have not fought about money in 3+ years of marriage Yes, we have disagreed about where our money should go in many different situations, but we have never had an actual stressed-out, knock ‘em down, … Continue reading →

Budgeting Basics (Part 3): Setting Up Your Budget and Reverse Engineering Your Goals

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Jacob

Welcome back to the budgeting basics series. Today we are going to get your budget set up.We will set goals by starting at the end and reverse engineering them to make them attainable. So far, you have put together a priorities list to help guide where your money should go and you have tracked your income and expenses so you can see where your money has been going. Now we can start putting the two together in your actual budget. Start With Your Actual Spending They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. That’s 21 days of repeating an action without going back to your old way of doing things. I think the magic number for budgeting is more like three months. Though you may be fired up to slash your budget and save tons of money toward your goals, you will quickly find that you overspend in … Continue reading →