Don’t Kill My (Savings) Vibe

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I have a confession. I don’t have a budget. I sort of have one, a kind of “halfway budget” if you will. Not a full “real” budget though. When I made the dive into learning more about personal finance, the first thing recommended (and then repeated over and over) was how I needed a budget.

Budgets are essential.

Budgets keep you accountable.

Without a budget, you won’t know where your money is going each month!

That’s what I was being told as I read those endless articles on starting a budget. Nothing was wrong with them. They were great and packed full of super helpful information. There were some problems though. First off, I tried putting them into practice and none of them really stuck. Second, the budgets created a guideline many people didn’t/don’t seem to want to venture out of.

Let’s look at some of those budgets.

50/20/30 Rule

I heard about this budget over and over. I can see why, the percentages are a good rule of thumb to follow. 50% of your income goes to essentials (rent, food, transportation, and utilities), the necessities of life. There are ways to save in this category. Move to places with lower rent, get roommates, a full-efficient car, meal plan and don’t eat out often and so forth.

20% are for financial obligations. You pay these after the 50% but before the last part. The 20% goes towards savings account, retirement planning, and paying off debt.

The last part, 30%, is all for the flex spending. Some consider it the “treat yourself” money of the budget. It is, sort of. This one is for day to day expenses: gas (including swirving past that slow driving on the freeway), entertainment (cocktails add up, haha), hobbies (all the books!) and any other miscellaneous expenses.

Envelope System

A simple, bare bones budget. This no frills budget can be used by many, but it seems better suited for someone who is a former swipe addict or the type of person who has a habit of not checking. Anyways…

You have several envelopes. Each of them with a different category. Groceries. Rent. Utilities. Insurance. And so on. This is a good budget for someone just starting out or for someone who really wants to know where all their money is going.

There are other types of budgets, but the two above are the ones I tried out and had some success with. I also tried out Mint, the online budgeting system. I didn’t even like that. Even though the budgets were great, none of them really stuck. Ya know?

I felt bad about not having a budget. Was I destined to spiral into a life of credit card debt and other debts because I didn’t have a budget? Scary, right? Not anymore though. I do something a little differently now. Good ol’ pen and paper! Yep, that’s right, Something super plain and simple.

Every month I get out a piece of paper and on one side I write out the target amount I want to save and the limit I need to spend in order to reach that savings goal. For example, let’s say a person makes $2,000 a month and wants to save $500. To reach the goal, they would need to make sure their expenses aren’t over $1,500 for the month.

This pseudo-budget/what-cha-ma-call-it does have some problems. What if a person wants to save more but can’t because of bills and expenses? That is where the topic of earning more (via raises at work or doing side hustles) comes into play and that’s a whole other post for another day.

I work with my money this sort of way because it works for me. It works for me way more than any of the other things attempted. The budgets killed my savings vibe. As instructed, I spent the time making sure my expenses meet the necessary categories.

I became so invested all the time in tracking my expenses and putting everything into little boxes. The budgets seemed to focus more on how much to save rather than how much to live off.

In the end, the whole task of budgeting left me exhausted and feeling restricted. So I abandoned the budget. And as I talked with other people, I learned many others felt intimidated about budgeting. They felt unsure about it and you can guess what would usually happen…they would abandon the idea of having any sort of budget and continue to go on, blindly sending their money into the abyss.

No0o0o0o0!! It does not have to be this way.

People look at the budgets and think:

“I can’t save that amount of money each month!” 

“My rent costs more than the listed percentage on the budget. There’s no way to follow it!”

Or worse…

“Okay, I’m saving 10% just like the budget says, so that means I can use any leftover money to treat myself! Yay!” 

Budgets and managing your money doesn’t have to feel restrictive. A person should continue to look for ways to cut their expenses, save more, and make more. Saving 10% and then calling it a day isn’t how to do it.

If you feel exhausted and/or restricted by budgeting, just grab a pen and paper. Or hey, do whatever works for you! Look into the anti-budget recommended by Afford Anything. Just remember to have some sort of budget. They’re *kind of* important.

What has your budgeting journey been like? Let me know how your budget works for you and how you personalize it!

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Colin // RebelwithaPlan

Colin Ashby is the writer behind Rebel with a Plan, a website dedicated to people who choose to rebel against the norm of living in debt and feeling financially unenlightened. He believes everyone has an eccentric quality to embrace and that lattes are sometimes a necessity (despite what the personal finance community tells you).

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