Now that we have a goal, how do we achieve this goal? The answer is one step at a time. We will build a budget first. This is looking at your current income and expenses. There are tons of resources out there when it comes to this online.
My personal choice has been making minor tweaks to the Americanized Poor Man’s Budget Sheet. This is a google sheets template that lists out and makes the calculations for you. It has not been updated or maintained, but it works soundly and you may find adding a couple of sections for monthly variable expenses (gas, food, electric bill) and debt (total amount, to be updated each month).
The variable expenses I did not include in fixed because I wanted to be able to track that on a month-to-month basis as well. This will help you to see trends that you have with spending and help with decisions down the road. The debt column is also tracking, but it feels so good to see those numbers drop.
Real talk, you can’t always be super tight with money. You will want to go out and eat. There may be a deal on some trading cards or a tweak to a deck that you can’t pass up. That’s just me? Well, whatever your hobby or interests are, there is room for it. This tool is used to help build a budget and see where your money is going.
If you have a favorite template or program you use for budgeting, I would love to hear about it! Have an amazing day.
-Vincent Hennings
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