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The saga continues! To recap, last year I studied the financial guru and YouTube star Jordan Page, to see if her tips and tricks to financial freedom could work for someone living on less than minimum wage. Short answer – yes, long answer – it required a few tweaks.
If you’d like to learn more about my review of Jordan Page’s Fun, Cheap, or Free blog and YouTube channel, you can read my blog here or read my Budget Set Up blog here.
PAYCHECK SET UP & GOAL TRACKING
My overall budgeting goal was to increase my success of becoming financially stable with an income of $15,000 a year. I created the Eazy Peazy Budgeting Templates to help me capture three things:
what/where I am spending my money
how often I’m attempting and hitting my savings goals
and what needs to change for me to continue to improve my finances.
My Budget Set Up assisted me in tracking and re-evaluating my finances and gave me a foundation to begin monthly and paycheck budgeting using Eazy Peezy Templates.
This system includes simple and to the point budgeting sheets that grow with your financial goals but don’t overwhelm you. These printable budget sheets were created specifically on the tried, failed and tried again method and are designed to allow you to edit them as your life and finances change.
Step 3: Paycheck Budgeting
In Step 1, we used the Eazy Peezy Budget Set Up packet to organize 5 accounts to label where my take-home income is distributed. My take-home income totaled $541.00 bi-weekly; this comes out to $1082 a month after taxes.
In Step 2, we used the Eazy Peezy Monthly Budget packet to organize and prioritize your bills, spending and savings for the month.
In step 3, we are using the Eazy Peezy Paycheck Budget packet, a three page organizing tool to help you see exactly where you're money is going from each paycheck to help you keep track of your monthly goals.
Every paycheck is an opportunity to increase your financial stability - it all starts with a plan. Tracking your expenses based on what is actually coming out of your paycheck is the best way to start budgeting if your new to budgeting or trying to practice good financial habits.
Make sure to have your monthly budget sheet and the EXACT amount of your paycheck ready.
Organizing your Bills
Add your exact due date to the first page of the paycheck budget and organize your bills by their due date. Add bills in order starting from your paycheck date and end it by the following paycheck date.
If you are paid bi-weekly, your due dates should include the first bill due within that pay period and the last bill due either on or before the next pay paycheck date.
Knowing exactly how much money you’ll need each paycheck for bills, savings and investments, will inform you on which paychecks you may have a surplus of income vs the expenses due and vice versa.
This doesn't mean that when you have a surplus you should go out a buy a Maserati. If you want that new car or new phone, than get in the habit of saving for it.
Get into the habit of saving for EVERYTHING! – whether it's a the newest cell phone or a new desk lamp.
Make a list of everything you want to buy and add them to your savings goal. As you continue to work on your paycheck budgets, you'll get closer and closer to buying that item.
Spending your Money
You should experience a sense of ownership over the money you earn. No one wants to just live with their head buried in bills and their pockets empty.
The best way to spend your money is to spend is safely. Developing safe financial habits, budgeting and being accountable for the expenses you take on and the luxuries you choose to buy is all part of being an independent human.
Start by seeing where your priorities are and try to expect where extra expenses may pop up. Organize your spending account by most important to least important. Take stock of what you already have and list those needs first.
Tracking Savings & Changes
There may be some paychecks were you aren't able to add to your savings but don't forget, your savings accounts are used for much more than just emergency saving.
This is especially important if you have debt you are trying to pay down. After completing the first two pages, if you haven't already added your debt as a bill, add you debt payment to your savings account.
If you have a large collection debt to pay, you can save up by adding a small amount of money every paycheck or every month. Track any changes or additions you want to remember but aren't applicable to your current paycheck.
What's the Point?
At this point you may be asking what exactly is the purpose of all this budgeting and planning?
Accountability
Saving money is difficult, even more so if you usually don’t have enough money to pay for your basic needs. Conversely buying items is the easiest thing in the world to do. Make your purchases carry weight by planning to buy luxury or extra items after you've paid for the necessities. Rework your budgets frequently, try to buy sustainably, and get in the habit of putting something into savings.
Financial Habits
There are so many bad habits we learn as consumers, habits that often begin early in our lives. What you aren’t told is that some habits can severely damage your credit, effect your buying power and create a serious issue for the financial security you'll want in the future.
"Financial stability alleviates some of the strain of our everyday struggle; it's not a cure by any means, it is just one less thing you need to worry about.”
The Eazy Peezy Paycheck Budget sheets are meant to be so easy that you could pull out a piece of paper and start budgeting even without the templates. Just start; wherever you are in life and whatever your working with, start budgeting towards a financially stable you today.
The Eazy Peezy Budgeting Templates include Monthly Budgeting but there’s more:
Step 1: Budget Set Up
Step 2: Monthly Budgeting
Step 4: Debt / Savings Budgeting
Future posts will debut the rest of the Eazy Peezy Budget Templates AND subscribers of the newsletter will receive blank printable versions!
