Money Saving Budget Planner – Why having one with CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

Are you looking for a way to manage your finances and budget? You may need a Money Saving Budget Planner to help. Using a Money Saving Budget Planner is essential when it comes to managing your household finances. In this article I am going to break down the best tips and tricks for using a Money Saving Budget Planner and apps to use that can help.

In order to pick the best money saving budget planner, you need to think about what your goals are. The benefits of using a paper planner are many, here are some of the top benefits of using a budget planner with your finances.

Benefits of using a Paper Money Saving Budget Planner:

1.) Using a paper planner helps you remember more.

When you write things down with pen and paper, it cements it more into your brain. By writing things down, you remember more and also make more of a emotional connection with those goals. This article from Forbes shares why Neuroscience Explains why you need to write down your goals, it is the same with your budget.

The article states:

But there’s another deeper phenomenon happening when you write things down: encoding. Encoding is the biological process by which the things we perceive travel to our brain’s hippocampus where they’re analyzed. From there, decisions are made about what gets stored in our long-term memory and, in turn, what gets discarded. Writing improves that encoding process. In other words, when you write it down it has a much greater chance of being remembered.

So yes, there are a lot of great apps and resources out there to help you budget and plan your money. The problem is those apps do not encourage the encoding process, making it tougher to remember what is going on with your money. By using a paper budget planner, you help this encoding process. You will remember where your money is going and have a better outlook for your budget.

2.) Your family members know where to look.

You have a central location in your home so that your spouse/kids/significant other knows where to find all financial information. When I was a child I remember my mom using a hard cover notebook to write down the family budget. I would find her sitting at the dining room table and she would explain to me why we couldn’t afford certain things.

If my significant other has any questions about money, he knows where to find the answer. All of our bills are carefully laid out in the monthly planning page of our personal finance planner which is the the best budget planner in my opinion. If he has any questions I can find the answer in seconds and it really helps our communication surrounding money.

3.) You use what you pay money for.

Yes, there are so many free budget planners available but I strongly believe that if you pay for something you use it more often. Research shows that if you spend money on something, you are more willing to take it seriously. If you are looking for accountability, you need to write things down.

You can always make your own budget planner, but research shows that you use what you pay for. I’ve printed off so many free budget planners in the past and they always end up in a pile of papers on my counter. Unused. I love the ease of having a spiral notebook planner that is already set up for success. It makes me use it more and actually get the results I am looking for.

The Personal Finance Planner is a blank date planner. You start your planner the month you purchase it. It comes with monthly stickers to help you customize the planner to start in the month of purchase.

4.) All of your bills, meal plans and debt payoff in one place.

There is something great about setting goals and seeing them all happen in one place. There are so many great apps and budget planner ideas that it can get overwhelming and disjointed. That is why I developed the personal finance planner. I was sick of using 4 different apps that didn’t communicate with each other. It was hard for me to see progress with everything in different places.

With the Personal Finance Planner I can see my debt reduction goals, my monthly bills, my cash envelope money, and my meal plan and grocery list. All in the same planner. It really is the best bill planner organizer! My entire month is put together and in one central location. YES! It makes me life SO MUCH EASIER!

5.) Writing things down helps you clear your mind

Have you ever had “swimming thoughts”? This is what I call my thoughts when they are all over the place. My kids have birthday parties on this date, this bill is due on this date, I get paid on this date….etc. etc. etc.

Writing things down is proven to help you clear your mind. Apps don’t do that, they add mental clutter. When you write things down, it clears up your mind to be present on daily activities. Not only does writing things down help you clear your mind, it helps clarify your goals, priorities, and intentions.

You may be stressed by wondering how to set up a budget planner. That is why I developed The Personal Finance Planner. It is already set up for success and it has helped thousands of people get on track with their budgets.

6.) Using a paper planner helps you stay motivated.

Motivation is key when it comes to sticking to a budget. Did you know that the last Sunday of every month I do a Budget Video on YouTube. I do this for a few reasons. To be personally accountable to do my own budget every month, to help motivate my viewers and readers to set their budget every month, and to answer any budgeting questions you all may have.

No matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished, motivation doesn’t last very long. You’ll notice yourself pumped up and energetic at first, only to sink back into a rabbit hole of self-doubt and hesitation a few days or months later.

Even if you have the strongest and most relevant of goals, you need to write things down in order to maintain your resolve and remind yourself of your purpose on a regular basis. This is why you need a budget planner.

7.) Writing down your budget helps you encourage daily progress.

When you write things down in your money saving budget planner, you are encouraged to keep going. When you pay off a debt, you physically have to pick up a pen and your monthly budget planner and write down that you’ve paid it off. That is powerful! You don’t get that kind of mental strength and encouragement from looking at an app on your phone screen.

As the shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis once said,

“Always carry a notebook. Write everything down… That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you in business school!”

You can use a weekly budget planner or a yearly budget planner. Both help with encourage daily progress.

Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of using a paper budget planner, lets move on to the question of how to use a budget planner. There are a few tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years of using a budget planner, here are my favorites.

How to use a budget planner tips and tricks:

1.) Start by writing down all your bills for the month in the bill schedule page. Do this the first month you start using it. I transfer this month to month in my planner. Do it right the first month and it will make the rest of the year a breeze.

2.) Set your financial goals for the month. Are you looking to pay down debt? Set up a debt payment plan using my debt payment calculator and plug those numbers into your budget to help with the payoff.

3.) Look at the past 3 months of your spending in the following categories: Groceries, eating out, clothing, shopping, and miscellaneous purchases. Total how much you’ve spent in each individual category and then take an average. For example: Looking at eating out the past 3 months – In May you spent $500, in June you spent $350, and in July you spent $275. I added all of them up and divided by 3. That brought me an average of $375. This number (the $375) is what I am going to use as my eating out budget for August.

4.) Set your first budget. Place the bills in the bill organizer page onto the monthly budget planner page.

You are then going to add your budget for groceries, misc, eating out, clothing, etc. You are using the 3 month averages that you figured out in step 4.

5.) Plan your days and your money in the same place using the weekly calendar pages. Start planning what bills are due, what daily activities you have to accomplish, and your meal planning and shopping.

Doing these 5 steps every month is going to give you such a great feeling! When I do this every month, I know where my money is going and what my month looks like.

I do my budget the last Sunday of every month. The last Sunday in June, I budget ahead for the month of July. This helps me plan the entire month out in advance so that there aren’t any surprises and I can adjust my spending when necessary.

Are you still not convinced that you can go without your money saving apps? I do use a few apps that go well with using my paper planner.

Here are some of my favorite money saving resources and apps:

Flipp: I use the Flipp App to digitalize my grocery list. I can find digital copies of my local grocery store flyers, plus upload my grocery list into the app and easily check off the items as I go through the store.

Tiller: This honestly is the best budget spreadsheet I’ve tried. Tiller connects your bank account with a google doc. Tiller will go in and pull your daily transactions into a google doc, you can then categorize your spending. I personally am not a huge fan of spreadsheets. I mess them up all the time, but Tiller has helped me set up a super easy template that you can use. You can sign up here, and click on here to download my template.

Instacart: I get groceries delivered on days where I am tight on time, or when I feel like I am in a spending mood and don’t want to risk impulse buys at the grocery store. Yes you have to pay money to use Instacart, but when the option is you either eat out AGAIN or you spend $15 to get your groceries delivered. I choose Instacart every time.

My Freezer Meal Plans:  I highly recommend assembling freezer meals to help you save time and money. I have 4 plans that you can use, you can find those all here.

The Personal Finance Planner: This is the planner that I spoke about all through this article. I developed this planner because I couldn’t find one that suited my needs. It is the #1 best selling budget planner on the market!

I hope this article helped you with knowing how to use a money saving budget planner. Whether you print off a free one or buy mine, I know you will be in good hands!