Sometimes doing adult things is hard. One of the hardest things about being an adult is managing money. You need to log in to so many things to pay the bills and pay them on time. You have so much figuring out to do on who needs what and what needs when. If we don’t pay bills, you won’t have food or electricity and we won’t be able to do laundry. And there are real necessities in life. Managing money can be very complicated sometimes. So how do you make it better? You make it better with a system. More specifically, a budgeting system.
Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast
How to Implement A Budget System That Works
If you are struggling to get your bills paid on time and effectively communicate about your finances with your spouse, a budgeting system is going to help you a lot. Of course, if you just simply want to understand the overall well being of your finances, having a budgeting system is extremely essential.
In today’s blog post, I will give you three tips to create a budgeting system that you can actually stick to and pay your bills on time. What do you say? Let’s dive into the three tips that will for sure help you with your budgeting systems!
Having A Budgeting System is Extremely Important
Alright, let’s talk about the topic today – budgeting. Are you the person who manages all the bills at your home? If you read some of my early blog posts, I talked a lot about how I’m not the type of person who does this. However, I never want to be completely hands-off with the bills at my home. I don’t want my husband to be completely hands-off as well. In my opinion, it’s not good when it comes to finances to have anyone completely in the dark because that can lead to problems in many ways. So, that’s why we have a budgeting system as a team to understand the needs in the house.
Money Management is Never Easy
To be real frank, my husband and I went through the wringer. When we got together, even though we had the best intentions and were super aligned on money, reality came and it was much harder than what I imagined. It was shocking for him as well because he went from managing money for himself to having two children and a wife.
My point here is that there’s a lot to navigate. More people mean that there needs to be more food, gas, and everything else. The cash flow becomes more and more frequent and it’s very easy to lose track of it. It’s very easy to focus on the negative side.
Everybody Has A Different Financial Situation
Maybe you are in a paycheque to paycheque kind of situation or you are just in this true ignorant state. You know zero systems. Your life is so busy and it’s really the last thing on your list. So, that’s what we will be talking about today. We will talk about some really incredible places you can start.
The First Tip to Have an Effective Budgeting System: Have Budgeting Meetings
The first tip to have an effective budgeting system is to have budgeting meetings. Budgeting meetings are there so you can figure out all the payment due dates. Specifically, you will figure out the amount of bills you are paying. All the automated things you signed up for. It’s also the place for you to count all the apps you are paying on Android or Iphone.
Having Budgeting Meetings Should Be A Non-Negotiable
If all you do is get through factual tasks and capturing data. Great. But if you could go one step further and talk about goals and troubleshoot what’s not working, then that’s even better. My husband and I have been really serious about this. I know that money is one of the most important reasons why people get divorced.
And I refuse to let that be a factor in my family and marriage. I think that every marriage at one point or another feels pressure from finances, whether that’s having too much money or too little money or somewhere in between. So having budgeting meetings is truly a non-negotiable because it is the first step for you to cultivate great relationship with your finances.
“Having budgeting meetings is truly a non-negotiable because it is the first step for you to cultivate great relationship with your finances.”
Having Budgeting Meetings Are Growing Opportunities For You and Your Partner
My husband and I had multiple budgeting meetings that didn’t go well. They could be hard sometimes. There were arguments. But I know that it’s normal for disagreements to occur. We need to grow, mature, learn how to be patient and respectful, as well as learn how to make compromises. Without budgeting meetings, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
Should I Have Budgeting Meetings On My Own Or With My Partner?
You can do it by yourself if you think that’s the best option. Or you can do it with your spouse. I highly encourage you to do this with your spouse. The only time when I tell people to have budgeting meetings on their own is under two circumstances.
The first situation is when you are single. The second situation is when you think it’s best for you to present a fully conceptualized idea to your spouse first instead of brainstorming together. I just want to make sure that each spouse knows what’s supposed to happen. So if you are the person that’s completely not in charge of finances and you don’t want to do this. Great, take it to your partner. You don’t have to be the one that takes 100 % responsibility for it. But you should know about it. Each spouse should be involved and know what is happening.
The Second Tip to Have an Effective Budgeting System: Have Your Money Tracking System
The next step after having your budgeting meetings is to implement your money tracking system. If you don’t have your tracking system in place for your money, then you are keeping all information in your head, inbox, and text messages. Where are you actually tracking all of this information? Fortunately, there are so many different platforms that have this already.
What Does the Tracking System Do?
The tracking system keeps track of how much money is given to bills and how much is leftover, as well as your allocation for all the other discretionary incomes and spending. Understanding the nature of those spendings allows you to make wise decisions regarding what to do with your leftover money.
You will know if you can play 200 dollars worth of golf or if you can get your hair and nails done. All of this information should be clearly tracked in a tangible way and established in a system. It shouldn’t be in your head. You shouldn’t be thinking about it or carrying it.
Looking For A Super Effective Tracking System?
If you are looking for a super effective one, you can try the spreadsheet that I created inside the SYB community (You get access to SYB as well when you join SYL!). I have a very specific method of doing this. I incorporated all the information I think are useful together and that turns into my tracking sheet.
If you do end up joining SYB, you will get all of that with a video that shows you how to set everything up. It’s really detailed and the formula is already filled in. In my decent opinion, there’s a big amount of work that was put in to set up the tracking system. It’s super automated. We found it much easier and more efficient than all the other systems that I tried.
The Third Tip to Have an Effective Budgeting System: Set Up A Weekly Finance Task
The third tip to have an effective budgeting system is to set up a weekly finance task. It’s important to note that this is not a finance meeting where you go back and review what you have established in the first meeting. You might need to have financial meetings more often but right now all you have to do is have one meeting and figure the rest later down the row. After having your financial meeting and establishing your tracking system, you need to figure out your weekly finance task.
I am calling this a task for a very specific reason. It has to be done every single week and the task is to make sure where all the money is supposed to be. This is the place for you to check if your automation works or not. This is not something you can play with, neglect or mess around with.
Weekly Finance Meetings Should Be Set Up As An Automation
Your weekly finance meetings should be set up as an automation. If you do so, you know you will show up at this specific time every week. It’s very straightforward. You open up the sheets and the bank accounts and you will make sure everything is at where they are supposed to be.
I don’t want you to go and check for paper bills and emails and try to figure out where the passwords or due dates are.You shouldn’t be thinking about any of that ever again.
Paying Your Bills On Time Is Absolutely Possible
I hope these tips will be at your advantage as much as it does for me. I ensure you that if you follow these tips and incorporate into your life, then you will have a great relationship with your finances. Let’s do a quick recap about the tips in the post:
- Have budgeting meetings
- Have your money tracking system
- Set up a weekly finance task
Looking for a Community to Share Your Progress?
If you are looking for a community where you can meet other people who might be on the same journey, I highly encourage you to join our FREE Facebook community. It’s a fabulous community and we’d love to see where you at and your progress. Feel free to also pop over to the DM or email us if you have any questions. Alright, friends. Thank you for hanging out here with me. I hope to meet you here real soon again.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I incorporate my weekly finance meeting into my schedule?
The most efficient way to incorporate your weekly finance meeting is through time-blocking. Check out my FREE time-blocking worksheet to learn the basics of time-blocking, develop the right time block for your tasks, and put what you learn into action.
