How I Budget | Whatever Wednesday

Budgeting is never a fun task. No one says, "Sorry, I'd rather be home working on my budget." However, budgeting is a CRUCIAL part of adulthood. Not fun, crucial. I have seen a lot of budget plans and videos out there and none of them have worked for me. I finally just sat down with a legal pad and wrote out my expenses versus income and tried to figure it out from there. I'm going to walk you through the steps I take to figure out my monthly budget so that maybe you can do it too.

(DISCLAIMER): I split all of my expenses with my boyfriend whom I live with so this is just kind of my share of things.

The first thing I do is figure out how much I am actually taking home. I multiply by 0.75 to figure that out because it gives me a smaller number than I will realistically bring home which I prefer rather than thinking I have more money and then not having it. I currently am only working thirty hours a week because I am in college and have a hefty work load as it is.

Next I write up all of my expenses for the month and the amounts (rounded up) of how much each of them cost me. This gives me a ballpark of where I'll be sitting after all the payments have been made. As you can see my current expenses are running me about $760.

That will leave me with approximately $50 after all of those payments. Again, I want to point out that I am working with approximations here. I work in a place that I get tips, usually upwards of $30-$50 dollars a week. Those tips I don't budget in because that's what I like to call "Fun Money". Fun money can be for anything from going out to lunch to going to get my hair cut. I also save A LOT so this is just a bare minimum income budget. 

I hope this helped you in some way to see how I budget and maybe use some of my techniques to incorporate into your own budget which I hope will help you manage your money better.