my budgeting style and payday routine 🤑

I remember that at the end of my first year of work, I looked at my bank account and realised to my horror that my bank balance was about the same as when I started the year 😦 where did my money go? 💸💸💸

I knew I couldn't let that happen again so I started a new system for myself and it's been working for me 🤓

✨ daily expenses ✨

the first and probably most important thing was tracking my daily expenses. I used to be great at this as a student but fell off once I started working. this means logging every expense, be it my $2 teh bing, my share of a friend's birthday present, a nice dinner, etc.

I use the Money Tracker app to track it, but there's plenty of options out there.

At the start of the year, I budgeted a monthly amount for every category of item (eating out, groceries, public transport, private hire, etc). it's important to be honest with yourself and set a budget that is reasonable so that you save money, but still have leeway to spend and treat yourself and others. I know I eat out a lot (especially during social gatherings with friends) so I gave myself a more generous budget for that 😋

At the end of each month, I'll put into my excel sheet the amount I spent on each category, so that I have a good sense of how much I spent per month, across the months. some months are better and some are worse for sure, and I definitely spend more if there are birthdays or celebrations in that month.

✨ big ticket expenses ✨

I separately record my big ticket expenses that are incurred on an adhoc basis, such as insurance premiums, medical expenses, income tax payment, donations, concerts on a different excel sheet. I like to separate these from daily expenses so that they don't cause hikes in my daily expenses (because obviously not going to a concert every single month), and I can look at my spending habits with more clarity.

I've always had issues tracking how much I spent on holidays (cos who wants to track everything when you're on holiday?) but I found what really works is just figure out how much I paid out of pocket by credit card, how much I changed in cash, and how much I need to transfer my friends at the end of the trip / how much people transfer me, to get my total. this means I don't get a breakdown of how much is spent on hotel, food, transport, activities etc, but I do get an accurate picture of how much I spent in total.

✨ payday routine ✨

1️⃣ celebrate pay coming in

2️⃣ transfer monthly allowance to my mum

3️⃣ pay off my credit card bills IN FULL. super important to pay off in full and on time!

4️⃣ at the end of each month, record my monthly expenditure into my excel sheet

5️⃣ at the start of the month, record the value of all my assets and liabilities

(my salary is credited into a high savings bank account so I wouldn't transfer it out anywhere, but I do know some people like having separate bank accounts)

#mindfulspending #paydayroutine #Adulting101