Did your parents or school talk about money in your life? If not, this is a totally NORMAL question to ask. 

When should I first start to budget?  Today, especially if it is before the beginning of the next month? If it is PERFECT! This is a great time to start because a budget is all about planning and planning where your money goes. 

It is just like telling your kids what to do and telling your friends what you are doing for the week. Tell your money where it is going and do not let it tell you that it is going to fees, late payments, huge loan rates,etc.

• Budget: Before the beginning of the next month
• Savings: Automatically when your paycheck is directly deposited.
  • Go into your direct deposit and make it automatically come from there that way you NEVER see it even in your regular account!
• Spending: This one is actually really hard for me…but in the last year it’s become easier and this is you can spend whatever you want because you budgeted for it!!!  If you go over, I have taken it from one spending budget and put it to another. 
• Investing: Start now! It is never too late – even a small 1% – 5% is better than nothing.

• Paying Debt: Start now with MORE than the minimum. Cannot afford more than the minimum…let’s start a coaching 1 on 1 session! Check out our Shop! 

Pin on Pinterest.

One thing I love about January is that it feels like a fresh start!

No matter if I did not save as much as I wanted or pay down the amount of debt I wanted to either. I know that it is a new month and a new me!

Here are some items to get your brain thinking about what to budget for January. Only a few days to finish up to tell your money where it is going. Let’s learn from 2018 and plan our budgets to be even better this year.

Pin on Pinterest! And comment below to let me know if you budget for anything else in January.

We all seek for knowledge, insight, understanding, and feelings.  We want to know why we exist, why we are here in life, and we want it now. We want to see results fast, so we can provide a wonderful life for the next generation most likely our children.  We want to have a financially stable journey in our live…

…to feel a sense of peace and balance in life.  

We concentrate on this thing called money and it controls our life.  It controls the way we talk, the way we make friends, and the life we tell our family and friends.  

I have loved my financial journey.  I have learned more and more each and every day because…

…it is a journey.  

It is not an easy journey, and if anyone tells you it is; they are lying.  Life loves to throw curve balls at us all from doctors’ bills, family issues, broken household items, and even a thing called divorce.  Even when I think I have it all together; I had a plan, saved up money, paid cash for a big purchase, and then fear comes knocking in.  The fear of not having an amount of physical money had me going in fear.  My mom had given me understanding that God has taken me down this financial journey because He knows I can build my savings back up and do great things again to make the world better!

This is called the fear of money and it takes on the TWO biggest needs to be fulfilled as a human. Starting out, we need food, water, and warmth which takes MONEY!  Our next need is safety and security and this also takes money.  We need to know, we will have an income or enough knowledge to get a job.  

[[ We as humans cannot live without…food, water, warmth & safety and security ]]

With all we seek in life, we want to be able to have a financially stable journey.

…to enjoy our life while we are here.  

We want to be remembered as a legacy. This is why we need to budget our money and not let it over rule us and begin to have the feelings of fear.  Instead plan a budget, follow the budget, and you will find that you have the two biggest needs met to feel fulfilled in life. 

What are your reason why you need a budget? Have you thought about the bigger picture of life? Have you reflected back on the last year, last month, last week, to really see where you are?   Let us know what you want to know on why we believe and why we budget.

Share. Love. Gain Confidence.

1. Booze.

Drink. Drank. Drunk. 

It is a great way to socialize, but this cannot allow us to break the wallet.  We must be sensible in how we are spending to be able to drink the good drinks.  We found the way to help us save in this category is drinking during Happy Hour.  For example) We just went out for $3 draft beers and $6 pizza.  Our tab was under $20 with a huge tip!!  If we do not watch where we go, we can easily add up and spend upwards to $100.  NO JOKE — been there done that and cried a little.

2. “Convenience” Stores

Ever stop at one to fill up gas?

We used to think this was not a possibility to spend money too, but as we talk more and more to people. This is the top way people spend. The spouse maybe going to get just a “drink and chips” end up spending $3 to $7 in the gas station.  It is even WORSE since we moved to the East coast and there is a 7/11 on every corner without even a gas station.  Think we are kidding, check the bank statement or who knows what this is…check the mint.com. 

3. Subscriptions not used. 

When we were 18 and signed up for everything under the sun. 

What subscriptions are automatically coming out of your bank account?  Have we looked lately?  Netflix? Amazon Prime? Xbox Live? Internet? Fabulous Boxes? TV? Cable? Hulu? StitchFix? LuLuLemon?

4. Living like your best friend.

We can say our friends have tried to live our lifestyle. 

When we first got out of school, we were making more than most of our friends working a Fortune 500 job.  Mostly making about $50k – $60k, while my best friends were bartenders and trying to live like their parents who have been at it for years on years saving, budgeting, and already lived the poor lifestyle.  Let us just tell you. Just stop! Stop living their life and live your own!!! Stop living in the $1200 apartment, going out to eat 4 to 5 times a night, drinking out Friday and Saturday night spending $100, and stop buying all these clothes for the kids or grandkids. We choose to be bale to go out and spend our money on experiences because we drove a car that was 10 years old and lived with roommates.  If we would have lived in the $1200 apartment with a brand new car, then we would stay at home and cook meals and drink water out of the tap.  Choice the lifestyle. 

5. Fees

How do we know this?

We used to work in the banking field, and it was common every day not to see more than $500 in a checking account and same for a saving account too.  Many accounts had less than $20 in it!! We are not LIEING — eek if we had less than $1000 in our bank account…we would cry, but that just how we now manage our money. Fees add up though for real $30 overdraft fees, another overdraft fee is $60, and wow there goes the $60 extra we were planning on putting towards our “extra bill.”

Check it out! Let us know how you spend your money.

Are the ways you spend your money what you want and feel guilt free on?

We feel like this debt is just getting higher and higher.

Why do we feel this way?

Debt is something that grows just like investments grow, but the other way around.  When we feel like we can never get ahold of anything like our debt, everything becomes effected by it. We thought we were the only one, but reality is our neighbor, our family, our best friends are in the same situation as we are.  

Decide to just start. 

The budget template will help you start!

Why is starting a smart idea?

Debt is possible to overcome.  Million, yes, millions of people have been just like us and have gotten out of debt.  We are not alone. 

Start small. 

Why small?

Start with the smallest debt.  It will make us feel better when we accomplish a small goal and make us feel like we are on top of the mountain.  Just like when we go hiking and enjoy the nature for free. When we start with the smallest, we enjoy the accomplishment of tackling the first bill — debt free. 

Auto to [[ZERO]]!! 

What the heck do we mean by this?

Automatically paying our bills for the minimum payment this includes all your bills!! This way we never forget about paying for any of the bills. Thinking to myself, okay, we will have it come out later in the month because we do not want to see our account go to nothing right away. But hey, hey — no way! This should be automatically done right when our paycheck comes in. 

Review Monthly. 

Monthly — What? We cannot look at our debt this much!

Yes, we can review our debt monthly to see how much progress we have made on the smallest debt.  Once you have one month down, it is easy to review it each month.  Plus when we review it monthly, we get excited how close we are getting to our goal and we can throw an extra $25 to $100 at it or whatever is in our reach. 

Still with me on reviewing monthly?  It has been 6 months now… 

Are we still together? Or did we break up and give up?

We know this paying down debt thing is hard.  Life is hard, but we are telling each other we cannot give up on it.  We have to be committed in this together it is just like losing weight.  There are ups and downs.  So now 6 months have passed or even if it hasn’t been 6 months and its been 3 months.  We can re-evaluate.   Are we hitting home runs or we striking out?

Home runs? 

Why home runs are so important?

Home runs mean we are putting down the minimum to all of our debt payments automatically.  We are starting with the smallest debt and adding additional payments to our smallest debt to eliminate it FAST. We feel like we just hit a home run in the major leagues.  Congratulations!!   Continue to complete these steps until you reach ZERO on all of your debt!!  It will be fun and you will find other ways to save money too!!

Striking Out? 

Can we get back up to the plate and get back on our game?

Of course, if we are striking out and getting off track with paying down our debt.  We are going no where…or maybe going backwards.  What is holding us back?  Lifestyle? Shopping to much? Credit Cards? Going out to eat?  Living to large? Where is the money being spent?  Join mint.com it is where we view all our accounts at once to know where we spend too much. 

Practice and more practice.

Think we are done once we hit DEBT FREE!!!

Well it is true we are DEBT free and this feeling feels great for the first 30 days, the year anniversary, and the 2nd year anniversary because millions are still in debt.  Celebrate, but be careful how you do so. We do not want to get back into a bad spending habit.  We did so much work to get out of this jail like feeling.  We were just practicing to save for our future. 

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Believe and Budget