20 Budgeting Tips for Beginners

Budgets are crucial to staying up to date and organized with your finances. Starting a budget can be intimidating at first, yet these 20 tips will help you start your budget and stick to it.

Determine Why You Are Budgeting

Write down why you're budgeting. Writing it down will make it easier for you to follow through. Create a clear “why” so that later on down the road if you are questioning yourself or thinking about quitting your budget, you can look at your “why” statement and remember what you're working towards.

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Test Out Some Different Budgeting Styles

Find a budgeting method that lines up with your “why” statement. You can track your expenses by hand, or through an expense tracking app. Do some research on some of the different budgeting methods so you can find the one that works best for you.

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Prioritize Your Expenses and Budgeting Goals

Once you have separated your needs from your wants, you can focus on the essentials. These include housing, groceries, utilities, and transportation costs. Make sure to prioritize your financial goals as well, whether that is paying off debt, saving for a vacation, or putting money away for retirement.

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Leave Room for Emergencies

Life is never perfect. Sometimes unforeseeable events happen that you may not think to plan for financially.

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Automate As Much As Possible

Technology can be a powerful tool in helping you budget. One of the best innovations in budgeting technology is the ability to automate payments.

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Work On Your Budget Monthly

Make sure you are working on your budget every month. If you transfer your expense tracker from an online service to a spreadsheet, you may already be working on it every month.

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Practice Budgeting to Zero

Budgeting to zero means that every dollar you earn every month has a place in your budget. There should be no extra money left over when the budget is done.

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Utilize Budgeting Tools

There are so many tools that are available to help with budgeting. Mint is a great resource if you use multiple cards because you can input all of them and track all of your expenses in one place. Again, having this automation will save you so much time.

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