How to make a budget (it’s easy!)

You’ve never made a budget? No problem, you’re in good company.

Lately several friends have asked for my help making a budget. They are all incredibly smart, over-educated, high-achieving people, but they hate tasks like making budgets and haven’t ever made one before. No judgement. I’ve been making budgets for myself since college, and I find them kind of fun, but I am clearly a nerd and not the norm.

Why make a budget?

• You can save more. Once you know how much you’re spending, you can figure out how much you can be saving. Then you can set up your savings account to pull that amount automatically, so you don’t even have to think about it. Of course, sometimes making a budget makes you realize that you can’t save anything at all, but that’s good to realize too.
• You can worry less. If you put some time into planning your yearly budget in advance, you can spend less time throughout the year stressed out about costs that inevitably pop up. If you plan in advance for $5k of travel costs and build it into your budget for the year, then when someone invites you on a trip of a lifetime, you can feel a lot better about saying yes.

Instead of telling you how to make a budget, I’ll just give you one. Here is a very easy Budget Template for one person. Save as a copy and then you can start filling it in. Happy budgeting!

If this is helpful to you, please click the heart. When you do that it actually goes right to my real heart.