5 Genius Budgeting Tips for Beginners

Frustrated with your budget? Want to quit? It’s never too late to turn things around and try a different approach! Don’t miss these 5 genius budgeting tips to get your budget back on track.

Getting your finances in order is extremely exciting! If you are anything like me you are always looking for ways to can improve your budget and actually stick to it. I’m sharing with you 5 top budgeting tips that my family and I swear by.

You are going to learn all about budgeting tips that will help you master your budget and achieve your money goals.

After learning these tried and true budgeting tips, you are going feel more in control of your money.

This post is about the best budgeting tips that every millennial should know about.

BEST BUDGETING TIPS

1. Don’t Be A Perfectionist!

If you have never written a budget, give yourself some grace. It’s not going to be perfect at all.

The first time you make a budget, it’s GOING to suck!

You may make it so strict that you’ll go over budget each time…

As a result, you’ll get frustrated and want to throw in the towel.

But, don’t let your perfectionism paralyze you!

It will take time for you and your family to adjust and figure out how much money you actually spend on food, transportation, housing, bills, clothes, credit card payments, etc.

If you are a control freak like me, you would want to know exactly how much money you will spend on X category, so you can budget accordingly. But the truth is there is not an exact amount! And it changes every month.

So, it’s time to let the perfectionism go and start to guesstimate your expenses and adjust them as you go.

It will take at least like 3 months of straight budgeting for you to start feeling comfortable with your actual numbers. So give yourself grace and time!

2. Don’t Procrastinate!

Procrastination is the death of us. It steals our inner peace.

Your procrastination is keeping you broke. You end up paying late fees, overdraft fees… And you stay in debt longer!!

Procrastinating costs you a lot of money in the long run. You end up paying a lot more in interest to your creditors.

You have to stop putting things off if you want to win with money. So start budgeting!

If you don’t sit down to plan out your budget, you’ll be wondering where your money went.

Once you get in the habit of budgeting, you will know exactly where your money is going. You control how much you are spending, saving, and paying on bills.

There is no better feeling than knowing that you have enough funds to cover all your upcoming expenses.

This budgeting tip will help you sleep better at night and may free you from excessive worry and anxiety.

3. Tweak Your Budget.

Don’t be so strict with yourself or your budget.

You know random expenses can come up unexpectedly. So, adjust your budget instead.

Let’s say you’ve planned to spend only $400 a month on groceries and $100 on eating out. But you actually spent $150 on eating out.

That means you would cut your groceries catergory by $50. After adjusting your budget, now you have $350 for the month to buy groceries.

See, you can tweak your budget as you spend money throughout the month. You won’t have to feel as guilty when you go over budget. You can always adjust different categories.

4. Get organized!

Like it or not, the more organized your life is the more financially well-off you’ll be.

Think about it:

How do you feel when you see a messy car with trash everywhere, clutter, crumbs, empty coffee cups…and it smells like barf? I’m sure you want to cringe!

But, what does that tell you about the person? Do you think their house is in any better condition? Don’t you think their finances would be a mess too?

If they don’t care enough to clean their car, their house, I’m sure they won’t care about their finances either.

You see. It takes a lot of work and effort to become organized and clean.

The same is true about your finances. You have to be intentional to win with money.

You need to have a written budget and plan ahead before you spend all your money. A budget is just a spending plan. You are the boss…you tell the money where to go.

You can’t procrastinate, or not care about your budget. If you do, your budget will be spiraling out of control and your finances will be a mess. And it would take a lot of work and time to clean up the mess.

Follow this budgeting tip and get organized, so you can stop stressing about money and be financially well-off.

5. Make Your Money Invisible.

In other words, hide money from yourself.

As soon as you get your paycheck, start transferring money to your savings account. Aim to always save 20% of your paycheck. If you are not able to save 20% of your paycheck, then save at a minimum 10% of your paycheck.

By transferring the money out of you checking account (to another savings account at another bank), your money is out of sight out of mind. You made your money invisible.

You have forced yourself to only spend what’s left in your checking account and you are making savings a priority.

This budgeting tip works like magic. You’ll start to see your money grow. With. Every. Single. Paycheck.

You can even start your emergency fund this way. By transferring at least 10% of your paycheck.

It’s genius! You pay yourself first.

To recap, here are 5 Genius Budgeting Tips for Beginners:

1. Don’t be a perfectionist!
2. Don’t procrastinate!
3. Tweak your budget.
4. Get organized!
5. Make your money invisible.

In this post we’ve covered a lot of ground together so far, from not being a perfectionist and not procrastinating, to tweaking your budget, getting organized, and now to making your money invisible.

Like it or not, you are the CEO of your money. YOU are who has to make things happen, and tell your money where to go. No one else can do that for you.

In the end, taking full and complete ownership for your financial success is the most important thing you’ll ever do for your money.

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