What Is The 50 30 20 Rule? The 50 / 30 / 20 Rule was first coined by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter in her book All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan. It's a simple rule to give a general guideline on how to budget your money. Here's a breakdown of how it works: 50% of your income goes toward your "Needs" (Housing, Groceries, Utilities, Transportation, Bills, Insurance, Debt … [Read more...] about The 50/30/20 Rule: Does This Budget Actually Work?
Types of Budgets
The Paycheck Budgeting Method
Your financial life is planned around your paychecks, shouldn't your budget be too? The Paycheck Budgeting Method is the EASIEST way to take control of your money when nothing else seems to work. The concept is simple. Write down your next paycheck amountWrite down ALL the bills that are due until the next paycheck arrivesWrite down daily spending until next paycheck arrivesFor Paycheck … [Read more...] about The Paycheck Budgeting Method
Seasonal Budgeting
I've talked before about those little emergencies that can absolutely kill your monthly budget, causing you to dip into savings or go into further debt to take care of. Things such as broken appliances, car repairs, water leaks and Christmas seem to come out of nowhere to blow up your budget. My solution to this is to create savings buckets for items that you can reasonably expect to pay for at … [Read more...] about Seasonal Budgeting
How To Create An Emergency Budget
Any good financial coach or writer will tell you that one of the first things you need to do when you start taking control of your finances is to build up an emergency fund. I wrote about what an emergency fund is and what to use it for here. To sum it up, your emergency fund is for unexpected expenses that pop up due to unforeseen circumstances. When those circumstances arise, you can then decide … [Read more...] about How To Create An Emergency Budget