How To Start A Realistic Budget On A Low Income
Ready to start a budget on a low income and start saving money?
Whether you are a high school or college student, on a low income, or budgeting for your business, starting a monthly budget should be easy as pie. Now sticking to it is where people get lazy and they just give up on the whole idea. That is such a huge mistake. What if I told you that budgeting can be fun and completely do-able?
You are probably thinking it is boring? I want to save but live paycheck to paycheck? I am on a low-income. Let me help you. I myself , was on a low-income but was able to do some tweaking and was able to save money where I did not have to live paycheck to paycheck anymore. If I was able to do it, so can you.
But, what is the real reason budgeting is holding you back? For many, they do not think they have enough to really budget and start saving. That is where you are wrong, my friend. Starting a budget on a low income is easy with a few tweaks and resources. Wouldn’t you like to be able to put away money and be able to pay ALL your bills on time?
LET’S GET TO WORK!!!!
Budgeting gets overlooked countless of times. And the real reason, it does not necessarily get overlooked, but a lot of people view it as boring. Nobody wants to budget because nobody really wants to look at their monthly expenses and see the real picture.
I completely understand. Looking at your monthly expenses can be kind of scary. Oh I take that back, it is scary.
When you look at your monthly expenses, you see the things you have been spending money on that you really don’t need. But, we all need to do this. The quicker we pull off that band-aid, the quicker we can organize our finances and make our bank accounts happy.
By digging deep into your expenses, you see how much you are not saving because it is taking a big chunk out of your monthly paychecks.
Budgeting is not the task on everybody’s priority list and it should be. Budgeting can be fun if you just look at it in a different way. Everybody wants to save money but feel they do not have the money to save. That is where I come in.
I am going to help you analyze your expenses, find some wiggle room, and help you to start saving money. Gone are the days where you are scared to look at your bank account. Let’s be happy to look at our account and see that we are able to pay bills, save money, and have money left over.
But, before we get into how to set up a budget and start budgeting. This isn’t going to be how I saved $10,000 in one month. Because, let’s be real, do you have $10,00 to save each month? Not unless, you won the lottery and got extremely lucky at the casino (I advise to stay away from that place. )
I am going to give you realistic ways to start a budget on a low income and start saving.
I am going to be listing out 5 areas to help you start working on your budget.
- Income
We need to first start with income. There is no budget without this. I want you to go look at your bank app and filter out your deposits for one calendar month. This is the base of your budget. I want you to write this amount down. We are going to build from this amount so we can analyze how much we should be putting towards each category each month (I will explain that in a bit).
2. Fixed Expenses
Next is fixed expenses. Fixed expenses are expenses that have the same amount each month. Some examples would be your rent/mortgage, cell bill, internet, insurance, and Netflix/Hulu (whatever your app of choice is). These expenses we do not have too much control over.
Go to your bank statement, go through any type of expense you have on the monthly that does not change and it will fall into this category. I want you to break your fixed expenses into categories and total them up.
3. Variable Expenses
Go through and find all your variable expenses. I love variable expenses. These are expenses you can definitely play around with. These can be the water bill, electric bill, grocery, gas, eating out, and entertainment. Go through and categorize all your variable expenses and total them up.
4. Remaining Balance
Sorry, we are on to the scary part. It is going to be scary for just a minute. I am going to try my best to alleviate the pain for you. We are going to work on this together. So, after your total, are you in the positive or negative?
If you are in the negative, this will be the last time if you follow my blog and if you adhere to my tips and strategies. You do not have to be in the negative, we are going to flip that around and make that a positive number going forward.
5. Analyze Costs
After the scary part, we definitely need some fun. Right? Looking at ending numbers can be pure torture sometimes. But, it does not have to be. This is something you should look forward to and I will help you better understand your budget.
We are going to put an end to negative ending numbers, the fear of looking at your bank balance, and the game of musical bills (which one needs to be paid and which one can wait till later). There will not be anymore Bill Roulette. We will be paying bills as they come in and this marks the end of past due notices.
AHH! What a sigh of relief!
First things first, how many monthly subscriptions do you have that you don’t use that much? Are you watching Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Sling, and whatever other streaming platforms you subscribe to frequently? I am all for entertainment but the ones you barely watch are just a waste of money. I would cancel those because you are seriously just giving these platforms money and you are not utilizing their services.
Are we going to the gym? This is the highest-ranking paid subscription that is not being utilized. If you are not using it, put this on the cancel list too. If you are not locked into a contract, that is. YouTube has a plethora of fitness channels, you can workout for free.
By cutting costs for items that you do not use, you are on the road to starting a healthy budget. But, there is so much more work to be done. You can easily budget on a low income and start saving. Being on a low-income should be more motivation than ever to start budgeting TODAY!
So, question of the day. Are you holding back from starting a budget? If so, what is the real reason you are hesitant on budgeting today?
