So, I asked our Instagram family the question above and thought to put the answers in one place so that they’ll never disappear.
Random things that pop up at the end of the month.
1st, I don’t want you to be hard on yourself. Life happens! If you’ve noticed that multiple random things pop up at the end of the month, save for them.
For instance, if you go “over” your budget every month and you’ve done all that you can do to write down what’s coming up, allocate a buffer in your budget to account for the extra expenses.
Getting it set up properly / Getting Started
We have a getting started series on our site that can help you. It definitely takes a few months to work out the kinks, but you’ll eventually get the hang of things. If the series doesn’t help you, just email us! 🙂
Making a budget and sticking to it.
I used to get so down on myself for “going over” in a budget category (and I still do). The best advice that I can give you is to automate your bills and then track your actual spending using an app like Goodbudget or utilizing the cash envelope system.
If you still keep going over and you know that you aren’t splurging, look at increasing that category’s amount. Also, make sure you’re using a quality spreadsheet to manage your budget. You need to see the details to really make things work!
Murphy screwing it up / Unexpected Expenses.
I always joke and say, “I don’t know Murphy”. Do we have random things pop up every once and a while? Heck
Does it knock us off of our plan? No.
Here’s why:
- We have a one-month cushion
- Our emergency fund is adequately funded
- We live well below our means
Whether you can do only one or all of the above, it will save you a lot of stress when Murphy DOES decide to pop up on your doorstep. So many people hate using their emergency fund, but that’s literally what it’s there for, lol!
Separating business and personal funds.
We had issues with this too and decided that the best thing to do was to create separate accounts. All business income is now deposited in the biz account and all of our biz expenses are taken out of it.
Having our money in separate accounts clears up the confusion and we never spend the
My expensive taste.
I FEEL YOU! Although I’m pretty frugal, I always gravitate to
Keeping up with expenses. Any app suggestions?
We use the Goodbudget app to track our daily expenses and it works really well for us. There are a lot of other budgeting apps you can check out as well:
These are just a few that we know of, but there is definitely something available to fit your needs!
Not finding additional savings.
We struggled with this when we started our journey as well. After we completed our first budget we realized that we only had $128 left to work with at the end of each month.
To start seeing progress, we had to make some serious changes in order to continue paying off debt while we only had a little extra money to work with.
Getting my spouse on board.
Listen, I have been there with DJ *insert long sigh*. But I swear, after I started crying and showed him how broke we were, he got his act together – FAST! He actually wrote a blog post about how he finally stopped being so difficult.
I do have to fight him every few months because he gets amnesia when it comes to food purchases. Sometimes he thinks, “Since we have it, we can spend it”. This is why I think allotting personal spending money and couple-fun-money is necessary for the long haul.
Being content when I have to cash flow things that I at least have the cash saved for.
Isn’t it amazing how underwhelmed we can get with the act of cash flowing expenses? Especially when we’ve either experienced not having extra money or seen someone else struggle to cash flow necessary things?
I sometimes hate cash flowing expenses too, even if I’ve planned for them in advance. The only thing that brings me out of my funk is acknowledging how blessed I am to even have the money to pay cash for what I need in the first place. Be patient, this will take time and if you’re like me, it will be a long battle.
Eating out from working so much. Too tired to cook and meal prep.
You probably know that I hate cooking lol. Some finance bloggers may tell you to suck it up and meal prep, but I’m not. Work is exhausting and so is cooking and cleaning. Check out the freezer sections of your favorite grocery store. If DJ leaves for a while, I go stock up on all of the yummy frozen meals at Trader Joe’s and Costco. Most can get thrown in a pan for 10 minutes or in the microwave for 5 minutes max.
Do what brings you the most peace. Even look at meal delivery services in your area if your budget has room for it!
Food!
If you mean that you hate cooking, see above. If you spend too much on food, it’s probably because you’re eating out a ton or buying lots of stuff you don’t need at the grocery store.
First, set a reasonable grocery budget (~$150 per person). Try meal prepping if you haven’t or my frozen food trick and also set a budget for fun which includes eating out. Once you’ve eaten all of your fun money (like I usually do) you’ll have to rely on your grocery stash lol.
Giving myself enough “fun money” or “mommy money”. I pull the strings way too tight.
Listen, you probably work a minimum of 40 hours a week. You may have a commute, family to take care of, a part-time job or something else that consumes your time.
BUDGET YOUR FUN MONEY! If you have the room in your budget to increase it by $50, $100 or whatever it is – do it! I know I struggle with this too, but I swear we NEED to have money set aside to treat ourselves.
Setting realistic goals for clothing, toiletries, etc.
It’s annoying to budget for those things since they usually don’t occur every month. I decided to add a $100 “home expenses” category for toiletries and random house crap in addition to our other expense categories.
For clothing, we usually spend our “personal” money but I know that some people have a sinking fund for this category. If you average $1000 per year in clothing costs, divide it by 12 and put it away in a separate account.
Confusion over categorizing all miscellaneous spending
If you’ve ever seen our budget, you know we like to keep it simple. Find out what takes up the majority of your miscellaneous spending and then make it a category. If your misc spending is irregular, set up a sinking fund and then pull from it when needed. 🙂
Of course, make sure that the budgeted amounts are within your means, but this worked well for us with our miscellaneous spending.
Sticking to it. I JUST can’t!
This is a hard one for many people to overcome. We learned that we had to figure out what helped us stay focused:
- Using the digital envelop method
- Not comparing ourselves to others financially
- Having monthly budget meetings
- Celebrating our small wins
You’ll have to really figure out what helps you and continue doing those things. Budgeting is a fluid process and might take time for you to get the hang of it, but you’ll get there.
Making enough.
This is going to be different for most people but there are a lot of ways to bring in more money so that you feel like you have enough. We made most of our progress with DJs’ salary alone, but I’ve done a few different things to help us make more:
- Negotiated pay raises and promotions
- Found ways to make money working from home
- Started delivering food as a side hustle
- Learned some new skills to kick start a career change
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That’s all for now, but there are a few more questions we still want to answer. We’ll save them for our Budgeting Q&A – Part 2, so check it out!
$tay Wealthy Friends!
First of all – love this post! I could definitely relate to a lot of the struggles readers shared. That said – not sure if I agree with the answer re: food. I think sometimes eating out a lot or buying things you don’t need can be the issue, but geography matters, too. For example, we’re in Atlantic Canada – and even if you’re taking a frugal approach to grocery shopping, it’s still pricey – especially if you want to eat uh…food groups other than grains haha. it also doesn’t help that we don’t have the same options re: where… Read more »
Thanks for reading and sharing your perspective! 🙂 – DJ