The ultimate guide to using a laptop effectively on a budget

If you’re looking for a better way to organize your personal finances, a budget notebook is a great way to stay on top of your finances and reach your financial goals.

Financial stability is not primarily determined by how much money you make, but rather by how well you plan.

That being said, we can do everything “right” on paper, but ultimately our steps are determined by the Lord. The scriptures say that there are many plans in a man’s heart, but the Lord’s purposes prevail. We cannot definitively say that if you follow formula x, you will get y as a result. The Bible has many financial principles that suggest that if we do certain things, the likelihood of financial success and stability is greater. But we are to manage our finances with the little or lot that the Lord graciously blesses us with – to be content in all circumstances!

One of the ways we can manage our finances is by planning properly and trying to improve our money management skills. This can be especially hard for a mom—there are so many plates we’re trying to juggle and things we have to keep moving—but it’s still an essential skill of the wise DIYer.

A budget notebook, also called a budget binder, keeps all your key financial planning worksheets and documents in one place:

• Expenses
• Monthly billing and due dates
• Subscription tracking
• Bullet journal expense tracking
• Savings
• Savings goals a
  savings trackers
• Savings account balances
• Sinking funds and worksheets
• Debt
• Debt snowball and debt repayment trackers
• Budget planning
• Monthly budget planner
• Weekly budget planner
• Bank account reconciliation

Your notebook can contain as much or as little as you like – the list above is not exhaustive. Depending on your personality, you may choose to keep only the essentials, and that’s okay!

Even if you’re not Type A, a budget notebook is a great idea because it will reduce financial stress by giving you a clear picture of your financial situation.

It’s important to know where things stand with your finances so you can assess and plan. Without a clear plan, you wander aimlessly and lack any control over where your money is going.

In contrast, knowing where things are connected to the right plan will help you achieve yours
financial goals faster. If you aim for nothing (no financial goals), you’ll hit it every time!

The great news is that you don’t have to be a numbers person to benefit from budgeting! Budgeting is for everyone, even if it doesn’t come naturally, even if you have no idea what you’re doing at first.

I’m here to walk you through the steps of setting up a budget notebook. Even if you feel discouraged as you go through the steps, stick with me! Your hard work will pay off in the end. It’s comforting to know where things are so you can plan where you want to be! Taking control of your finances isn’t rocket science, it just takes a little planning and a lot of diligence.

It is the basis of financial planning
budgeting.
A monthly budget gives you a clear picture of where things really stand and what you can do to get where you want to be.

Trying to understand, organize, and take control of your financial situation without a budget is like trying to get to your destination without a plan. Your chances of successfully arriving at your destination on time are greatly increased when you first map out your route.

Budgeting is an essential part of your financial planning — whether you’re a numbers guy or not — and it gives you peace of mind if you take the time to dial it in.

We all need a certain level of predictability. Absence a
budget, our finances will feel completely out of our control. To some extent, there will be – you will have unexpected expenses that come up during the month – but we can prepare and anticipate that at some point we will have unexpected expenses. So unexpected expenses aren’t really that unexpected; we know they will occur at some point.

Some considerations when creating a budget include the time period, the style of the template, and how you plan your expenses.

One thing I learned that was a game changer for me is that budgeting doesn’t have to be done on a monthly basis. It can be done on a
weekly basis, bi-weekly or any other cycle you choose. The key is to match your personality (whether you’re a detail person or a big picture person) and your payroll(s).

Another consideration is whether to have a written budget or a digital planner. If you are just starting out, I recommend writing down your budget on paper. Once you understand that, you can move on to an
Excel budget template or editable pdf template.

Finally, there are various budgeting methods such as
50 30 20 budget method and
zero budget method.
I personally prefer the zero budget method because it is specific to your needs as opposed to the universal nature of the 50 30 20 budget.

A monthly budget is easy to create if you use accurate information. My way of creating a monthly budget is as follows:

1. List monthly income (take home) from all sources.
   
2. Write down all your fixed monthly expenses.
   
3. Count all yours
   variable and seasonal/irregular expenses.
   
4. File
   financial goals and put in the budget.
   
5. Mark each expense as must or discretionary and adjust as needed.
   
6. Subtract total income from total expenses. Set all the way to zero.
   
7. Track your expenses!
   

Assign every dollar a purpose, on paper (or
excel spreadsheet) before the beginning of the month, it will give you peace of mind and bring order to your finances. Not everything will go according to plan – but we plan for that too!

An important note is that checking your bank account balance is not the same as budgeting. If you’re spending and still checking your account balance to make sure it’s not zero, it’s not a plan!

Budgeting has been a huge blessing to our family and one of the reasons we feel financially secure even though
one income family so that I can stay home with our children.

Download my free budget templates and choose a monthly budget page that fits your specific needs and keeps you focused on your budget goals.

If you get paid weekly, a payroll budget template is probably the most functional for your needs. If you receive monthly payments, a monthly budget template will work best.
This free download has a budget for every style!

In this section of your budget binder, you can keep:

• monthly billing, amounts and due dates
• non-monthly expenses and due dates
• diving fund balances
• total monthly expenses
• subscription tracker

Not tracking your spending after you’ve set a budget is like mapping out a route for a road trip, plugging it into your GPS, and then covering the fuel gauge so you never know how close you are to emptying. If everything goes perfectly, you can estimate it and you won’t have any problems. However, any detours or changes in plan and you’ll be frustrated and wishing you could see the gas gauge because you never know how much longer you can make it before you need to fill up.

It’s the same with our finances. We can make a fantastic plan (budget), but if we don’t track what we spend, it’s just guessing until the next fulfillment (paycheck). When you live this way, you often find that at the end of the month, you have more money left over than the month.

The easiest way to track your spending is through an app like EveryDollar, although I recommend tracking manually if it’s your first time.

if you’ve developed bad spending habits, you may want to try a spending freeze to help you get control.

The first step to tracking your spending is to review your bank statements for the past 3-6 months and divide your expenses into different categories.

Expenses that are fixed—meaning they don’t change from month to month—are right for the budget. Variable expenses – those that change from month to month – are budgeted using an average.

Next, create a monthly spending plan by writing down your monthly income (take home) and listing each expense category and amount and subtracting your total expenses from your income. If this number is negative, you are spending more than you are earning. If it’s positive, you’re in the green!

Finally, once you’ve created a plan, it’s important to track your spending on a daily or weekly basis. I prefer to track our expenses at least every other day to stay on top of it. I use the paid app EveryDollar which automatically pulls transactions from our checking account. All I have to do is drag and drop each transaction into the correct budget category. It only takes five minutes a day at most! 

This section of your budget binder could include your savings goals, savings account balances and documents, retirement account statements, and related research or account balances.

Tracking your savings goals will increase the probability of their achievement. No matter how big or small the goal, track your progress along the way.

In general, you should always save for something. If you wait until your car breaks down and doesn’t run away to save up for a new one, it’s likely to be a stressful financial situation. Instead, putting a little bit aside each month long before you need a new vehicle will take the stress out of your financial situation, making it more of an inconvenience than a crisis.

We always save as much as possible for various future expenses such as:

• New vehicles
• Medical expenses (through HSA)
• Topping up/building an emergency fund
• Investing for
  retirement
• Repairs and maintenance of vehicles
• Home repairs and maintenance
• Home Building Fund (we are in the early stages of construction)
• Deposit on a
  home
• New phones
• Christmas gifts/parties
• Special occasions
• Holidays

Depending on the nature of the expenses we are saving for, we have our savings either in our current savings account or in our
high yield savings account.

Some times of the year allowed us to save more than others. However, while we cannot cover the full cost when it comes, a good start is much better than nothing!

Download and print my free Savings Tracker Pack!

Setting financial goals is a key part of a sound financial plan. It might be helpful to start by identifying your financial stressors – keep in mind that they will be different for everyone.

Is it mounting credit card debt? Crippling monthly student loan payments? Do you have any money set aside in an emergency fund?

Once you’ve identified your stressors, you can create goals. If debt eats up your income every month, aim to pay off your consumer debt in 12 months. Then print a
debt free coloring book and visual tracking of debt repayment and put it in your budget notebook.

Include any other financial documents you would like to have in your budget binder. If you are interested in markets and funds, you can keep financial spread information in your budget. That way, if you want to see how your particular portfolio is doing, you can just reach into your budget binder to find the information you need.

Some people like to keep receipts for large purchases, detailed expense calculations, sinking fund balances, etc. in their budget.

How you organize your budget notebook is entirely up to you, just make sure it’s practical. It’s practical to have everything you need for your finances in one place!