How To Simplify Your Budgeting

Do you have complaints about budgeting? I hear complaints. Some of the problems are I can’t pay myself first. It takes too long; it’s confusing, I don’t earn enough to budget, and I don’t like tracking my spending.

The truth about budgeting is it’s the only way to improve your financial situation, no matter what it is. If you know how to make a budget, you are halfway there. And if you have been working with a budget or at least thinking about a budget, you know what some of the benefits of budgeting are.

You need to learn or make a few hacks that simplify your budgeting and take some of the hassles out of it. Knowing how to simplify your budget is worth its weight in gold.

How To Simplify Your Budgeting

After you have a budget, you’re comfortable with it. It’s time to make a few tweaks to streamline your budgeting. The idea is to do it faster without losing information.

Before I go any further, if you don’t know how to use a budget, you should read my article “how to use a budget.”

Change Your Budgeting Style 

If your budget, you have a system you use, which may take too long, or you are not saving the money you thought you would. The good news is there’s an answer for almost everything, and there are answers for your budget woes.

Pay Yourself First

Pay yourself first is just what it implies. Before you pay anyone, pay yourself first. When you pay yourself first, usually this money goes into a long-term investment, think retirement.

There’s a strategy for paying yourself first. Simply have your employer deduct an amount from your pay and deposit it into a long-term investment. Usually, people do this for retirement plans.

How much should you pay yourself?  The answer is as much as you can. But that’s not helpful. 

Those who don’t already pay themselves first may find it difficult to pay themselves anything.

Make a goal of how much you want to pay yourself. You think you would like to save 10%. But you can’t afford that amount.  Make it easy on yourself by starting with the lowest amount possible. Maybe 1% of your gross. That’s not much (At least you are paying yourself). You can budget around the 1% and pay off some debt or earn more money. You can increase the amount you pay yourself until you reach your goal.

In most cases, this is an automatic transfer. After you have signed the papers, you’re done.

Budgeting Takes Too Long 

Starting a budget can consume a lot of time. You need to gather your paycheck information, bills, and invoices. You need to organize your ledger. Some numbers won’t work, so you need to balance the amount for that category. 

It may take several attempts before you have a budget that works for you. And yes, this will take time, but when you have a budget that on paper works, it’s time to make things easier and faster.

I will work through some problem areas that will help you speed up your budget process. 

Balance Your Budget Daily 

How much money do you have left in your grocery category?  If you balance your budget daily, you will know.  It’s essential to know before you go shopping, So you don’t overspend.

Many people have the misconception that your budget is a once-a-month thing and it’s not. If you try to do it all in one day, it can be overwhelming. 

If you don’t balance your budget daily when you go shopping, buy gas, or spend money in any way, you won’t know your limits.

Instead, you should work on your budget daily. As you go through your day, you should be making entries in your spending journal. Then at the end of your day, you should balance your budget. If you don’t balance your budget daily, it’s too easy to overspend and not know it. 

balancing your budget once a month can take a long time, and you may overspend and not know it.

If you do it daily, it’s only a few minutes a day.

Also, if you balance your budget daily, you will be more engaged with your budget. Being more engaged means you are less likely to make mistakes and overspend.

I Don’t Like Tracking My Spending 

Like it or not, this is the only way to prevent overspending in a particular category. You need to track your spending daily.

There are several ways to track your spending. One is to write it down in a spending journal to include the date the item that was purchased, the amount, and the category the money came from. 

You can voice record the information on your phone if you have a smartphone. Just read the necessary information to your smartphone. 

Also, you can save receipts and write the information on the back of the receipt.

Tracking your spending is essential for budgeting. Choose the less painful way to do it and be faithful to it.

I Don’t Have Enough Money To Budget 

The amount of money you earn is not the issue everyone needs to budget. 

If you are on a low income, it may be more critical for you to budget your money than someone who earns more than you. Because you have less to work with and for you to improve your financial situation, this is the only way you can do it.

My Spouse Isn’t On Board

Some of us are savers and use budgets; some aren’t. 

It’s more difficult if one spouse or significant other wants to budget but the other doesn’t.  But it’s not impossible.

An easy solution is to have three checking accounts. 

One checking account will be our checking account. Our bills will be paid from this account. You usually agree on bills:s living expenses, rent/mortgage, electricity, water, and any others you decide on.

Decide how much each person will contribute. Some couples go 50-50. In other cases, one person earns more money than the other and doesn’t mind paying more.

It’s up to you.

It’s also a good idea to decide who will pay the bills and when deposits will be made.

Use Templates. Make It Easy 

After you have a budget that works, make a template.

if you use a paper budget, put in all of your categories and the amounts, then make copies to have all the information available when you start a new budgeting period.

If you use a software program, most of them can create templates. You can save a lot of time using templates.

Lives change, and so do budgets. If you need to change your budget, it will only take a few minutes.

Spend Less. Often 

The one thing that will slow you down is if you make many purchases between the times you update your budget.

The fewer transactions you need to catch up on, the easier and faster it will be.

Take this to the next logical step. When you go shopping for groceries, use a shopping list and buy everything you will need for that period of time. Don’t be that person who makes multiple trips to the store. You will save time in the store, time not returning to the store, and money you didn’t spend on gas. And you’ll have fewer receipts to balance to your budget.

Budgets Are Too Confusing 

Budgets can be confusing, but if you break them down into smaller chunks, they aren’t confusing. 

If you are making your budget and you’re presently working on your expenditures, narrow your focus and concentrate only on what you are doing (expenditures). Do nothing else. When you complete the task, it will be time to move on to a different part of the budgeting process.

Do one thing at a time. 

After you have been doing your budget for a period (maybe a month or less), it will become less confusing.

I Can’t Save Enough Money

Here’s a common complaint. Some people don’t feel like they can’t save enough money. Maybe they can, and perhaps they can’t, but until you try budgeting, you really don’t know for sure.

When you budget and live by your budget, you direct money to places important to you. If you want to or need to save more money which category can you take money from and still meet your needs? Would it be groceries, gas, recreation, or a different category? After you have a category, you can redirect some money from it to your savings.

That’s the importance of budgeting. You have only so much money. Where do you want and need it to go? 

Set Reasonable Goals 

What are reasonable goals? The answer is different for everyone. A way to find reasonable goals is through your budget.

What is your goal? What do you want to happen? Do you want to buy a new house or car, vacation, or send your children to college? 

Now that you know what you want, will your budget support it? Or, put differently, can you find the money in your budget and still meet your needs?

If the answer is yes, then that’s a reasonable goal.

If the answer is no, it may still be reasonable if you increase your income or decrease your cost of living. You could get a roommate, start a side hustle, get a better-paying job, or move to a cheaper place.

Sometimes we need to create reasonably.

Automate Your Budget 

There are many areas of your budget you can automate.

Before I start: Even if you automate a part of your budget, you still need to complete the process and put it in your budget, so you know how much was spent. 

• Savings
• retirement savings 
• paying bills

Savings 

Saving money is always a good thing. When you automate savings, you usually go to your bank and set it up. In some cases, it’s just a phone call, and in other cases, you can do it online. It’s automated, and you will never forget it again.

Retirement Savings

When you save for retirement, you’re usually investing because it’s for the long term. Sometimes you are talking for decades.

It’s easy for you to automate your retirement plan. It becomes a set and forget it; you automatically make deposits to your retirement funds without doing anything.

You have one less thing to do.

Saving Up For Something

Having an upcoming event, item, or project you need to save up for is common. Some things people save up for is a new computer, tires for the car, a new car, a down payment on a home, and so many other things.

When possible, it’s best to pay with cash. You don’t want to finance loans because they get expensive and increase your living cost.

An easy way to save for upcoming events and projects is to use sinking funds. Simply put, sinking funds are what you keep for an upcoming event. Each pay period, you set aside a certain amount for that event. When you have the money saved, you are ready for that event. 

Paying Bills 

This is a blessing and a curse all in one.

The blessing is you don’t have to take the time to pay the bill, which is good. But you still need to update your budget.

The curse of this is that there are recurring bills for products and services that you no longer want, need, or use, and you continue to pay for them because this is a set-it-and-forget-it system.

You frequently need to review your auto-pay to ensure you are not paying for products or services you no longer use.

Conclusion 

You can use many hacks to make your budgeting more accessible and faster without losing any information.

Knowing how to simplify your budgeting will save you time and money.