MAY 2019 BUDGET PLAN WITH ME

May 2019 Budget Plan With Me Highlights

Budgeting Insights from Live Questions: If your income is variable, I suggest budgeting off your lowest income month. Your first month of budgeting is about tracking your spending and gauging your weaknesses so you can make a plan for them going forward. Sometimes you have to sacrifice small things for greater gains. Using cash versus your debit card is a personal choice based on the accountability you need. Budgeting every month gives you the ability to see how well you are doing on a monthly basis. Here are some insights that I learned from my April Spending.

• I’m starting a 9-video Plan with Me series on YouTube where I share my budgeting process more in depth.  Be sure to subscribe so you get notifications when they go live!
• Every month I’m live streaming my monthly budgeting session.  You can catch these Facebook Lives on the last Sunday of each month at 9pm Eastern.  The next one is on May 26th.
• I’m going back to cash envelopes in May.
• I’ll be using one of my freezer meal plans to help cut down on our restaurant spending.

Links Mentioned

• The Personal Finance Planner
• Download Your Free Printable Budget Pack
• SmartyPig Savings Account
• My Meal Plans
• My YouTube Channel
• Last Month’s Budgeting Video

April Budget Recap

• One big thing blew my budget: I got sick.  Since I’m self-employed, I don’t have traditional health insurance.  I use Christian Healthcare Ministries, and this means I pay everything out of pocket.  So I had $345 in urgent care and prescriptions for April that I didn’t budget for.
• I was under budget for groceries by about $400.
• I was over budget on restaurants by about $300.
• I was under budget on my miscellaneous* spending by about $300.
• We got a bunny for my daughter’s birthday, and that blew our budget a bit, too.  I really love Oreo and like to spoil him with toys, but that’s going to have to stop.

*My miscellaneous category includes personal care items, household items, car washes, gifts–basically anything I spend on that didn’t have a category in the original budget.

May Budget Goals

• Cancel my cleaning service.
• Stop getting my nails done (I need to get them taken off, but I’ll probably just do that myself).
• Pay off my furniture credit card.
• I’m budgeting $600 for groceries, down from $800 I budgeted in April.
• We need to cut down our eating out.  I’m considering doing a no eating out challenge in the next few months.
• Use cash envelopes — I didn’t do this in April because I was too lazy to go to the bank, but I need that accountability to keep from overspending.

Lessons

• We went to make tacos this week and realized I forgot to buy taco seasoning and I didn’t have the right spices on hand to make some.  I immediately went to “we need to order pizza or just go out to eat”. My fiance had the more sensible idea that I should just run to the store for taco seasoning–it cost $1.39.  Much less than pizza or a meal out! But I learned that’s an area where I need to slow down and make a choice, not just jump to the “easy way out”.
• I’m going to do one of my own freezer meal plans for May to help with this.  With meals ready to go in the freezer, it will help me stay on track when I don’t feel like cooking or start thinking we don’t have anything to cook.
• Quarterly bills have been an issue so starting this month, I’m setting aside money monthly for our water and garbage bills using my SmartyPig account.

My Budgeting Process

• I use The Personal Finance Planner.  
• I start by listing all of my bills along with their amounts and due dates in the bill scheduled.
• Then I transfer those amounts to the monthly budget spread.  
• Using the monthly calendar page, I take note of when bills are due, along with holidays and any family events or activities, because those have costs that need to go in the budget, too.  I also add my paydays on here.
• With all of that in mind, I budget out my variable costs like groceries, restaurants, and miscellaneous.
• Other pages in this planner are the debt reduction page, weekly planning page, and a meal planner with a shopping list.  These and the included cash envelopes are all meant to help you stay on budget and keep everything in one place.

Budgeting Insights from Live Questions

• If your income is variable, I suggest budgeting off your lowest income month.
• Your first month of budgeting is about tracking your spending and gauging your weaknesses so you can make a plan for them going forward.
• Sometimes you have to sacrifice small things for greater gains.
• Using cash versus your debit card is a personal choice based on the accountability you need.  

Ready to start budgeting with me? Let’s get everything on track today!