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Is this you? You set a budget every single month at the beginning of the month and just a few days in you are failing you don’t know where your money went. You want to do better and you are desperately trying everything to stick to your budget.
Every single month you sit down and write out all of your numbers. You have tried different budgeting apps, pen and paper, Excel spreadsheets, and nothing seems to stick.
On the first of the month, your plan feels flawless. You’re motivated and excited and you really think you can hit your money goals. You want to be debt free. You want to have an emergency fund. But it feels like the world against you. Nothing you do with your budget ever works.
At some point in my budgeting journey, I realize how many things affect my budget that aren’t the math. If money were simply just math, we would all be millionaires, but there’s so much more to money.
This blog post is a quick overview of things that helped my budget journey, but I also have an entire online course “How to Actually Stick to Your Budget” That takes each of these 10 steps and breaks them down in 80+ lessons with videos and worksheets to help you budget with confidence!
Here are the 10 things that helped me stick to my budget
1) Know what your bigger picture is
I talk about my dream life and my vision board a lot because I think it’s so important. I knew that if I had kids I wanted slow mornings I wanted the freedom to take off sick days for snuggles and I wanted the ability to takeoff a random day in February to go on a little adventure.
I knew my bigger picture, and I knew why I was fighting so hard to be debt-free. If you don’t have this, this may be a reason you’re not hitting your money goals.
Figuring out your dream life is one of the best things you can do for your money goals. Because on the hard days where you don’t feel like budgeting anymore and you don’t feel like sticking to your budget you can dig into that dream life and keep going.
2) Have a realistic budget
I would be doing you a disservice if I acted like the actual budget part of this isn’t important money is more than just math, but it is also math.
I highly recommend sitting down with your last 30 days of expenses and spending and figuring out your starting point.
If the math is not mathing, you will either need to lower expenses or increase income.
3) Set goals that you can hit
So often we aren’t setting goals that actually work for us. Statistically 80% of people don’t set goals. Only 8 to 10% of those actually achieve the goals they said.
Setting SMART goals and setting goals that excites you are huge components of actually hitting your goals. Often times we are setting goals and looking back so make sure you’re checking in on your goals as well.
4) Think about your thoughts around money
Often times we have the mindset of I work hard so I deserve… This mindset usually starts with a five dollar treat. And this mindset can quickly turn into. I deserve a car payment I can’t afford. I deserve a house at the very top of my budget.
If you’re feeling this way, try shifting into I deserve to feel peace with my finances instead of stress. I deserve to know that future me is taken care of.
Two things that have helped my mindset a ton around money are affirmations and gratitude.
5) Being aware of how your brain impacts your money
We pick up a lot of our money habits around the age of seven. So things may be carried over from your childhood that are contributing to your money struggles. Our brain also releases dopamine, a happy drug, when we spend money. This interacts in our brain incredibly similar to drugs. Companies also spend billions of dollars on psychology research that they use for marketing to get you to spend more money. There are tons of tricks to getting you to spend more money.
I have an entire Bachelor’s degree in Psychology that has taught me SO much about our brains and how it interacts with money.
6) Set up systems for the days you “just don’t wannnna”
I talk so much about systems, but a lot of this comes from the Atomic Habits. One of James Clear’s quotes to set your goal based on what you can do perfectly on your worst day. So much of our lives and goals are based around what we can do on our best days.
This is where I talk about the five bank accounts that I use to create a system that only requires me to really check my budget on payday. Having multiple accounts that all have a different purpose has helped me organize my money on payday so I know that I have spending money and I’m not spending the electric bill money on groceries. I no longer have to do the mental math in the grocery store to make sure I am not over budget.
This is where I talk about having a payday routine that sets you up for success. And having a house routine that makes it possible for your brain to do less.
7) Pay attention to your spending habits
I have been tracking my spending habits for over two years now and it has been a huge game changer to my spending. You have probably seen me post my no spend month tracker on social media but it helped me see that I was doing better than I thought I was. it also helped me see where the patterns in my spending were. I could see if I was ordering takeout every Wednesday because of late meetings it gave me the option to find a different plan or put it in the budget.
Creating my budget based on what was actually happening gave me permission to spend on the things that I wanted to spend on. It also gave me permission to find a cheaper solution. Those five dollar habits might not be keeping you broke, but they might be keeping you from having the adventures you actually want to have.
8) Be aware of relationships
First, they will ask why… Then they will ask how.
Relationships with other people are hard. People may feel threatened or jealous when you start seeing success in your money goals.
Study shows that you are most like the people that you spend time with. And this means that you were picking up the habits of the people you are spending time with. This can be good and bad.
Having a budget accountability partner can be vital to your success, but not setting boundaries with people who aren’t working on money goals can be costly. Figuring out your boundaries is a huge part of you sticking to your budget
9) Have a plan ahead of time
The average adult makes 35,000 decisions every day. The national health Institute describes decision fatigue as the impaired ability to make decisions as a consequence of repeat decision making. So when you’re making too many decisions, you may see a decrease in the good decisions.
Planning ahead set you up for not having to make decisions. When I was working two jobs, I would pack my gym bag, my breakfast, my uniform, my lunch, snacks, my bartending outfit and my dinner. Most of this was packed the night before, but it allowed me to not have to make a decision throughout the day About spending money. This saved me so much money because I didn’t have to make a decision about any of my meals.
I also highly recommend having a game plan for when you have a rough day. It is not if it is when, so be prepared. There are tons of free or cheap self-care options to choose from if you already have a list of them before you need them.
10) Have a list of money saving tips
Simple things like doing a quarterly audit of your budget, unsubscribing from emails, and deleting apps off your phone can save you a ton of money.
I also have a ton of money, saving tips for how to save money on food, what apps to download to save money. And having a list of free, fun things to do.
Whatever your money goal, you got this!
Being on a budget doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to be boring.
It does have to be intentional.
I created my course How To Actually Stick to Your Budget based on these 10 tips. Each tip has an entire module that covers in-depth How To Actually Stick to Your Budget.
My course is 80+ lessons long. It is self paced. By the end of the course you will be confident that you can set your budget up on the first and have the skills to make it through without feeling like you are failing at your budget! Your budget will work and you will be crushing your money goals!
Go enroll in How To Actually Stick to Your Budget and start crushing all 10 of these tips!
