Eight Tips to Stick to Your Budget
You’ve done all the dirty work. Reviewed your bank statements and credit report. Gathered a list of all your bills and their due dates. You’ve made a list of your pay days and amounts. You’ve decided what bills need to be paid from what paydays. And, you’ve finally made that total rock-star of both the debt free journey and journey to financial freedom, the zero-based budget.
(And if you haven’t, you can get more info about how to do all of that here).
Great. Now what?
You may be wondering “How do I actually stick to this perfect, beautiful plan I’ve made for my money?”
Or you may be thinking “Sure, this plan looks good on paper, but it’ll never work in reality.”
When I ask people why they don’t like budgeting, or why they have fear or anxiety associated with it, I get many reasons, one of which is the (totally false!) belief that the budget will be impossible to stick to. After all, a budget does you absolutely no good if you don’t actually work the plan.
For your budget to help you achieve your financial goals, you’ve got to be able to stick to it. For some, it may be easier than others. But lucky for you, I’ve compiled 8 tricks that will help you actually stick to the budget you create. Let’s dig in!
Eight Tips to Stick to Your Budget
1. USE CASH ENVELOPES. Using cash envelopes is something I do on a regular basis to help me stick to my budget. One thing is for sure, you can’t spend more cash than you have. Cash makes it literally impossible to overspend.
I love to use cash envelopes for the categories where I tend to overspend, which, for me, are Eating Out and Fun Money. After I complete my zero-based budget and decide how much I’m going to allocate to those categories each pay period, I head down to the bank and withdraw cash. I usually allocate $40 every two weeks for eating out and $40 for fun. Sometimes I switch between cash clips and envelopes, but the result is always the same. When the money runs out, its gone. There’s nothing left to spend in those categories.
Plus, using cash helps you see the money dwindling before your very eyes. I always think longer and harder about a purchase when I have to give away my cold, hard, cash, rather than simply swiping my debit card. I love cash envelopes for this reason, too—not only do they help me stick to the budget, they help me spend less!
2. USE AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER. Accountability is a remarkably effective way to help you reach your budgeting goals. Having someone—anyone—in your life that you can be accountable to will exponentially increase your effectiveness at sticking to the budget. Here are three options to consider:
Friends and Family. Tell your friends and family members what you’re trying to accomplish and ask for their support. Tell them why you want to stick to your goals, and how their support and encouragement would mean the world to you, and how it would actually help you achieve your goals and financial dreams.
Social Media. If you don’t want to share your debt free journey with those in your life, you can turn to social media.
I love to do this through Instagram. This year, I’ve started making my budgets public and save them to my stories each payday. I’ve also started doing monthly budget reviews on the blog, where I share with you—down to the penny—how I spend my money each month.
Having an audience to hold me accountable does WONDERS for my spending. I love being able to say “Hey, I went 24 days in January without spending a dime!” I would dread having to say, “I totally lost it and decided to splurge on a Hawaiian vacation this month!” We are all human, and we aren’t perfect—none of us. But, having that audience out there totally helps reel me in, whenever I’m tempted to misbehave with money.
Habit Tracking Apps. I love using Habit Share to track my no spend days. This app lets you track your progress each day on any goal you want to set by marking the calendar in green for success or red for failure. Whenever I’m thinking of spending outside the budget, or buying any non-essential item, this app makes me hesitate usually long enough to reel me back in. I hate the idea of having to place an ugly red spot on my calendar. Here’s a screen shot of my app from May 2018, where I managed to hit 20 No-Spend Days. Bonus points for using this as an accountability tactic if you post your results to social media.
3. USE SINKING FUNDS. Sinking funds are a way of saving up a large pile of money by setting aside small portions over time. I use sinking funds to save for expenses that I know will eventually arise—but I’m not sure when (hello, medical bills and car repairs). The personal sinking funds I use are medical/dental, HOA dues, birthdays/gifts, Christmas, and car repairs. I set aside money each paycheck in each of these funds, so when an unexpected expense arises, I’m prepared.
With sinking funds in place, if I’m hit with surprise medical expense or car repair, or get invited to another wedding/house warming/baby shower, my budget isn’t completely derailed. Rather, the money is right there, specifically allocated for that purpose. It helps me stick to my budget, and brings me peace of mind during what could easily become a crisis. For everything you ever wanted to know and more about sinking funds, including how to create and manage them, a full list of sinking funds to consider, and the 5 sinking funds every budget should have, click HERE. Below is a screen shot from the Envelopes Budget Manager app I use to manage my sinking funds. You can see two down below: Medical/Dental and Birthdays.
4. BUDGET IN SOME FUN MONEY. Fun money is ESSENTIAL to sticking to the budget. If you cut expenses so drastically that you never get to have any fun with money, you’ll never want to budget, and never realize the power and freedom that budgeting creates. In every budget you make, be sure to set aside some fun money to do whatever you want with. No questions asked. It’s just for you. To have fun with. To enjoy.
I budget $80/month on fun money to use however I want, but you may want/need more or less, depending on your personal situation. And, if I don’t spend the whole $80 in any one given month, I let it pile up, in case there’s something really fun (but also $$) that I want to do (like go to the theatre or a concert).
5. REMIND YOURSELF OF YOUR FINANCIAL GOALS. Don’t forget why you started budgeting in the first place. Were you overwhelmed with the bills piling up? Did you want more peace and less stress when it comes to finances? Did you want to be able to quit your job and stay home with the kids? Start a business? Travel more? Whatever your reason, mindless consumption is NOT going to get you there.
Keep your financial goals and dreams at the forefront of your mind at all times!
Write it on a sticky note and tape it to your debit card/inside your wallet where you’ll see it every time you try to make a purchase.
And with each purchase you make, ask yourself “Do I want [this thing I’m about to spend money on] more than financial freedom?” The answer is probably no.
Remember, there is nothing you can buy in any store that compares to the peace of being out of debt and financially free. Don’t give up what you want most for what you want right now.
6. USE A MANDATORY WAITING PERIOD ON ALL NON-ESSENTIAL PURCHASES. I use a 30-Day Buy List to help curb impulse expenses. Anytime I want to buy something, I write it down on a list in the notes section on my iPhone, along with the date.
And then, I wait.
I force myself to wait 30 days until I can make the purchase. Once the 30 days is up, I add the item to the next month’s budget, and budget specifically for it—if I still want it, or use my fun money to fund the purchase.
By the time the 30 days passes, both the desire for the item and the urge to buy it have usually long since faded.
Now, I am not always perfect with this, and I still make an occasional impulse purchase here and there, but this method has saved me HUNDREDS in impulse purchases that I am sure I would have later regretted.
You don’t have to be as drastic as 30 days. Start with 24 hours, and then build your resistance muscle up over time and move it to a week, or two, until you’re at 30 days. Think about how much less you would spend if you had a mandatory 30-day waiting period for all non-essential purchases.
Here’s an actual screen shot of my 30-Day Buy List, which (as of this writing in February), you can see, still contains items from November that I haven’t yet purchased. The simple act of putting them on this list, with a plan to budget for them if I still want them in 30 days, really takes the edge off wanting to impulsively make a purchase
7. IDENTIFY YOUR SPENDING TRIGGERS AND AVOID THEM. Ever gone to Target to just pick up 1-2 things and walked out feeling like you own the entire store? Guilty as charged! I ain’t gonna lie. I love me some Target. Everything in the place is so stinking cute, and I always feel like I want it all.
If you know you have a spending weakness for/addiction to a certain store (Target, Starbucks), limit the time you go there. Challenge yourself to go an entire month without going to that store. Use the Habit Share app, discussed above, to track your progress! And if you absolutely have to go to Target or your trigger store, for say, milk and bread, don’t go over to the clothes section, or the home decor aisles. Milk and bread aren’t there!! You’re only inviting trouble when you venture into other parts of the store which contain merchandise for sale that is not on your list!
In addition to specific stores, other things can be spending triggers as well. I’m looking at you stress, emotional events (break-ups, grieving), and social media.
If these things are spending triggers in your life, take action to eliminate them or find a different response other than shopping to cope. Do you turn to shopping when you’re stressed? Take steps to eliminate as much stress in your life as possible. Prioritize sleep and maybe consider adding in a mindfulness activity like journaling, meditation, or yoga. Hell, maybe just a weekly bubble bath with some candles and absolute alone time would do the trick. Find a different activity to replace the shopping. Give a good friend a call, go for a walk outside, read a good book, or watch a comedy on Netflix for some mood-lifting laughs.
If social media is causing you to overspend, cut back on the social media and unfollow those accounts that make you feel less-than and encourage you to overspend. You don’t have to abandon it completely, Lord knows I love me some Instagram, but I’ve completely stopped following home decor and fashion accounts that make me feel inadequate and like I need to spend more/have more to be worthy. Instead, I created an entirely new debt free community Instagram account, completely separate from my personal account, where my feed is filled with money-wise souls, committed to saving money and paying off debt. Not only am I not tempted to spend when I jump on Instagram, I always leave feeling inspired and having learned something new.
8. ALLOCATE MORE THAN YOU NEED AT FIRST AND GIVE YOURSELF SOME GRACE. Take it from me, it’s going to take several months before you get good at budgeting. It’s just the same as everything else—practice makes perfect. No one is an expert the first time they try something. So give yourself some grace and allow yourself to be a beginner. Understand that your first few attempts at budgeting aren’t going to be good. They may downright suck. You may have to rearrange money from category to category—several times—before you get it right. And that’s ok. Allow your budget to roll with the punches as the month progresses. That’s called life, not failure.
When you are first starting to budget, don’t try to cut all your expenses down to the bare bones. Instead, give yourself plenty of wiggle room. You may have wildly underestimated how much you’ll need at the grocery store. If, when you first begin, you allocate more than you need, you won’t feel as strapped, and that breathing room will help you stay within budget when you first begin. After you’ve been at it for awhile, you can look for ways to reduce expenses and tighten the belt with respect to spending.
And there you have it, friends! Do you use any tricks to stick to your budget? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!
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