Lets be real, I know you’ve seen a million post on Tik Tok showing you how to make a budget. I’m not going to lie I’ve seen them too and I’ve gotten some amazing tips from them for sure but there is no one size fits all when it comes to finances.
So now that we have that established I want to get into the nitty gritty on the things you want to take into consideration before you start putting your budget together.
Before you can begin to budget just like everything thing else I advise you want to start first with taking inventory. What this means is you need to know what’s coming in and out of your accounts. Start by pulling up all our bank accounts and go over your transaction history .You want to take note of all streams of income coming in big or small, any monthly subscriptions you may have, and all bills and their dates. Getting a better idea of everything coming in and out is going to provide a type of clarity with your finances you’ve probably never seen before. Especially if you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
Now that you’ve taken inventory it’s time to organize those finances just a tad bit better. What I mean by this is you want to start grouping those transactions you just took note of into categories and I know this may seem like a lot but if you want to get the debt down and your finances in order you may have to sacrifice a few hours up front. This is a non negotiable. Knowing how much you’re spending on takeout vs groceries and shopping will tell you exactly where you need to cut, where you can allocate more, and where you may need to work on more discipline at. I know for us when we first started getting our finances in order it’s was crazy to see how much I was over spending in groceries and eating out. I was buying $900 worth of household supplies and groceries but spending $600 a month on take out. Well no duh you’re throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of produce every month!
If your problem is shopping DO NOT GO COLD TURKEY. If you have a problem with shopping slowing decrease your budget monthly on what your spending till you get to a comfortable spot. I truly believe shopping addictions are real and cold turkey with addiction just screams relapse. Trust me!
Now that you’ve taken inventory of what’s coming in and going out it’s time to eliminate some things ! You’d be surprised how many subscriptions you’re paying for and how much you can save. At one point in time I realized my husband and I wear both paying apple for the same things and eliminated $40 worth of bills by getting the family plans. Try seeing if you can get the streaming subscriptions cheaper through your phone plan or other routes. It’s tedious trust me I know but so worth it.

I promise the hard part is down now it’s time to start putting that budget together, If you paid biweekly or weekly, you want to put together a monthly budget and also do a paycheck breakdown for each paycheck. If you need a template check out my printable budget planner , but if you’re writing down your own here is what you’ll need to add to it. You want a section for income. This is where you’ll
list all streams of income, what the expected vs actual income is and totals.