I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget?

Question

I'm able to sit down and put together a budget. My problem is following it. After about a month of being strict, I lose sight of things, and get off the budget. It's then a couple of months later and I realize I need to get back onto a budget and the cycle repeats.

What are some tips and ideas that I can implement to continue to follow my budget after I've made it?

Answer 1

It's simple, really: Practice.

Fiscal responsibility is not a trick you can learn look up on Google, or a service you can buy from your accountant. Being responsible with your money is a skill that is learned over a lifetime. The only way to get better at it is to practice, and not get discouraged when you make mistakes.

Answer 2

Do a monthly budget, unique to each month, before the month begins, spend all of your money on paper.

Use envelopes to help you keep track of how much you have left for things you buy throughout the month. Have separate envelopes for things like groceries, restaurants, clothing, entertainment. Put the amount of money for each category in cash in the envelope. Only spend the money out of the correct envelope and don't mix and mingle between envelopes.

Pay in cash, with real money. Don't use credit or debit cards, it's proven you spend more when you are not paying with cash.

Answer 3

Switch to cash for a few months. No debit. No credit.

This will help for two reasons:

1. You probably use cards for everything, so you'll be pretty broke and unable to spend alot of money, since you paying bills from 30 days ago AND spending money in current (cash) dollars.
2. Psychologically, spending actual cash is an activity that is interpreted as pain by your brain, and you will naturally try to avoid spending it.

Once you've broken the bad habits, you should be able to go back to cards for the convenience factor.

Answer 4

To me, this question is really about setting and meeting goals. The process is the same, whether it's about exercising regularly, or saving, or whatever. You need to have clear, personally-relevant reasons for doing something.

Write down:

1. Exactly why you want to save. It may seem trivial, but if you can't visualize the prize it's hard to stay motivated.

2. How much can you afford to save? Use something like Mint.com to find out your real monthly expenses, as opposed to what you think you're spending. Also, don't get overzealous... leave yourself some money for small luxuries and unexpected expenses so you don't feel like a miser. Saving should be a joy, not torture.

3. Automate the saving process. Set up an automatic transfer to move the amount you figured out in step 2 to your savings account on the same date you get paid. This is very important. By saving early you ensure there will be enough money to save. If you wait until the end of the month, there will usually not be anything left.

4. Don't you dare touch your savings! (Except in a real emergency) If you must dip into your savings, immediately create a plan to put it back as soon as possible.

Also, get into the habit of reading personal finance books, blogs, sites, etc. I recommend authors like Robert Kiyosaki, and Suze Orman.

Good luck!

Answer 5

1. Have a spreadsheet (excel, google) that lists your expenses and income, and how much money you are supposed to have left by the end of the month. Have categories like "mandatory spending" - mortgage/rent, utilities, "variable spending" - groceries, clothing, gas, etc., "savings", "free income". If you see that your free income is less than what you spend on items not in first two categories - cut the spending until it fits and keep it there.
2. Register your credit card accounts with mint.com (or alike site you trust) and use budgets feature to track your specific categories (groceries, movies, books, etc.) and use the stats provided by it to track categories over time. If you are not inclined to trust such sites, download your transactions to a spreadsheet and do the same manually. Find out which categories routinely get you over budget and think why - is your budget too small? Do you shop impulsively? If so, you should leave credit card at home and just take enough cash to buy whatever is necessary.
3. When going shopping, make a list beforehand and buy only the stuff on the list.
4. Make automatic savings to buy anything over preset small amount (like anything over $200 or depending on what your income level is) - and buy only after your savings account has it, but not before. Avoid credit for all but most expensive things (like car), if you use credit cards - always pay them off monthly, if you find you can't do it - use only debit cards or cash.
5. Follow "day of wait for every $100 of price" policy - i.e. if you want to buy something costing $200, wait for 2 days (you can wait more of course, but never less), consider alternatives, research the prices, think if you still need it or maybe you want to spend this money otherwise, etc. Higher the price, more you wait. Of course, then number should change according to your budget - $100 is just an example. And if we talk about buying something big, like a car, you don't have to be exact - but you should have a longer wait still.

And remember, there's nobody but you that can do it - so the most important tool here is your determination and persistence.

Answer 6

Try a tool like mint.com that will send you text messages regarding how you budget is going. If you use mint, set up your budget to send you reminders before you hit your budget. Example: if my budget for dining out is $100, I tell mint.com it is $50 and I get nagging text messages after $50 to remind me to keep a lid on my spending.

Answer 7

Assuming what is taking you over budget are not essential costs such as fuel bills, food, mortgage etc. you could do the following. Work out your monthly disposable income after all essential base costs have been sutracted. Then simply keep a book of any additional spending.

It will be very easy to see if you're at risk of overspending. In fact, even when one has no need to budget it's still an excellent idea to keep a book of all your spending. It's surprising how useful it can be. It's a great reference for dues dates, sizes of past bills and provides an excellent cross check of your bank statement.

It's not often that you find an error on your bank statement (at least it shouldn't be!), but my books have helped me locate three such errors over the past 25 years, which I'm sure would have gone unnoticed by most people.

So my advice is, keep a book of your spending.

Answer 8

Plan all your needs and put priority based on need & urgency.

New Habit:

Rethink. Rethink. Rethink. whenever your going to buy something. rethink before going to buy. remember what is your priority one than that and will this affect on your plans. if that affect, than dont buy.

Lets leave it to that habit, that will take care of your budget yar.............

Answer 9

I've been budgeting with YNAB for a couple of years and the budgeting principles that they use has been really helpful for me. The software itself isn't important -- it's just a tool to help track my cash flow.

Here are four guidelines they offer and how I've used them to within my budget:

1. Give every dollar a job; my budget should align with my personal priorities. After I sit down and map out my spending, saving, and investment, there's no money left over for impulse purchases. I know where every dollar is going.
2. Save in advance for large infrequent expenses like gifts for the holiday season. Saving for gifts over 12 months is a far more successful strategy than just hoping I can come up with the money in December.
3. Be flexible in your spending. When I use a rigid budgeting system it's easy to be discouraged once I overspend because it feels like I've failed. The reality is that life doesn't always line up neatly with what I had planned and that's okay! For example, a lot of my friends have June birthdays so I've overspent on gifts. No problem, I'll just take some money out of my clothing budget and make up for the difference.
4. Save for (at least) a month's expenses so that you can budget consistently on a monthly basis. It's a lot easier to plan when you don't have to make trade-offs between which expenses are due first.

Answer 10

Give all your money as well as your budget requirements to someone you really trust. Tell them to give you ONLY what your budget allows. As long as both of you take this seriously, this method will be very effective.

Answer 11

Master your own psychology and emotions.

Budgeting is less about math and more about mindfulness.

Find happiness with a lifestyle that you can afford.

Pay close attention to your brain every time you have an impulse to spend money. Take a picture (in person) or bookmark (online) the thing you think you want, then come back to it 24 hours later.

9 times out of 10, you won't want or need that thing that you thought you did during the impulse moment.

We are creatures of the brain my friend :)

Answer 12

Lazy man's budget. Four separate accounts for timing of expenses: short (monthly; utilities etc.), medium (quarterly+; property taxes), long (yearly+; house improvements) and retirement.

Set target levels for each account, to cover 1 full cycle. The short target is smallest; it should comfortably cover a month. For me each target is about 10x larger than the last. (Cycles & targets for a homeowner w/ family; YMMV).

All income goes in short term. When an account gets above target level, the excess gets swept up to the next longer term account. That's all I keep firm track of; takes just a few minutes a month.

Watching the account balances vs. their targets (and how short some of them are of target) keeps me focused on spending, and thinking about how much I can sweep (or can't) next paycheck.

Answer 13

Don’t make a strict budget unless you’re poor.

After tracking where all your money goes by using only a debit card for a couple of months, make a reasonable budget that you know you can follow while also saving.