- Learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel how to#
- Learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel full#
Anyway it doesn’t make a huge difference because I’m living my budget life, but I think if I was still living my old payday-to-payday lifestyle it’d be a struggle. It used to be once a fortnight, but I suspect our parent company’s payroll provider charges them per “run,” so they figured they could save money by paying us once a month. It is definitely over the top, however it is such a habit now that this is like muscle memory for me. So this is the budgeting routine that I have been living for 7 years. ** okay okay, I don’t buy things most of the time unless I have budget money available My Routine I don’t buy things unless I have budget money available**
Learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel full#
* I have a credit card and a charge card – these are exclusively for chasing points though, and are both set up on direct debits for the the full amount each month, so while they’re technically “debt”, I don’t count them as I’m not spending money I don’t have. Which there’s nothing wrong with, just if you’re buying dumb garbage make sure you’re doing it intentionally (have a “dumb garbage” category), not because you’re like “eh I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
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I find that having money left over just encourages me to spend it on dumb garbage. Hopefully once you get your expenses below your income, then you have money left over! But! Don’t have money left over! Budget that cash into something you’re saving up for. Keep at it and before you know it you’ll be someone that nobody wants to talk to because you won’t shut the hell up about fitness (or in my case, budgeting). It’s kinda like starting exercise – it can be painful and suck and seem pointless, but after 6 weeks or so you’ll start noticing little differences here and there. This can be painful, but don’t get discouraged – I swear the results are worth it. The good news is that you should now know how much you’re spending on various things, which lets you fine-tune stuff and figure out where you can cut back or adjust things to get your finances under control. Now hopefully all your money coming in is greater (or about equal) to all your money going out.
![learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel](https://www.tillerhq.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ynab-budget-spreadsheet-export.png)
Just be realistic and don’t judge yourself. When you’re budgeting, especially when starting out, don’t be like “oh yes I am a responsible adult who eats at home all the time, and never goes out on expensive benders” when you’re clearly not – because what’ll happen is you’ll blow through what you allocated to yourself, get discouraged, decide budgeting is pointless, and give up. That is, don’t start budgeting next month’s pay because you don’t have next month’s pay.Īlso, make sure you’re realistic about your expenses.
![learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mS9Jsi3El1Y/sddefault.jpg)
Also super important is figure out what all your future bills/expenses are and when they’re due.
![learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel](https://www.alextran.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ynab-vs-everydollar.png)
Figure out what your income is, then figure out what all your expenses are. It sounds super dumb and obvious, but I think once you have total visibility over your finances, the rest will gradually fall into place. I am super fanatical and evangelical about You Need A Budget (it has changed my life) but regardless of how you do your budgeting, the idea all boils down to:
Learning personal finance ynab budgeting with excel how to#
Yes, I get paid much more than I used to, which allows me to be a lot looser with things these days, however I believe that knowing how to budget makes a gigantic difference to your life no matter your income. I remember it constantly being an anxiety at the back of my mind, and these days it’s just… gone. I cannot emphasise enough how good that feels. After around 3 years I was completely out of debt* and the previously familiar background stress of “money” was not a thing in my mind anymore. It took about 6 weeks until I started noticing an actual difference to my life and stress levels. It had a bit of a learning curve and there were a few false starts, but I was determined to get the hang of it. I’d tried Quicken, Mint, Excel spreadsheets and a few other budgeting apps before and they’d never worked for me, but YNAB purported to be different somehow. Anyway we all lived variations of the previous paragraph and wanted to get more control over what was going on in our lives. So it was sitting in my games list just under World Of Goo. In June 2014, my friends and I went quarters in a discount 4-pack licence for You Need A Budget (YNAB) on Steam. Throughout most of my 20s, it used to be a cycle of “hooray I got paid, time to buy all the things I want… oh crap now I’m totally pov until next payday.” Usually that, or variations of “oh crap, I forgot this bill was coming up.” I’ve traditionally been pretty bad with money.