Let’s chat budgets! Specifically my top three budget tips to staying on top of your financial goals and finding ways to fit in home projects or home decor items.
I have to admit, I scroll through Pinterest and Instagram and see so many picture-perfect homes and sometimes I get a little jealous. That’s not a flattering trait, I know, and I’m not proud of it. I absolutely love our home and all the things we’ve done to it so far, but I look at so many other people’s kitchens and think, “How do so many people have such perfect kitchens?!”
Have you ever felt that way? Please tell me I’m not the only one. I will say, I don’t let myself linger on those thoughts and wants for very long. I know they’re not good for me and only lead to disappointments.
My husband and I have made a financial goal to never get another loan again, with the exception of a mortgage. We want to pay for everything in cash. While I love our goal and I know we will reap many benefits down the road, it is sometimes challenging to watch people around us get so many nice things that we would love to have.
Don’t get me wrong, we definitely have nice things. However, we don’t get them all at once and exactly when we want them. We get them when they fit into our budget and make sure that by getting them they don’t leave our bank account feeling a little lonely.
This is only a season. I have to remind myself of that. We will get there.
We’re not perfect with our budget all the time- we still want to enjoy life. But we have stuck to certain mindsets and rules that have helped us. So I want to share three budget tips to help you do the same!
1. Have a Reasonable and Rational Mindset
Remember how I just said that I don’t let myself linger on those jealousy thoughts? Well that is part of what helps me stay focused on our goals.
For me personally, having a reasonable and rational mindset is the first and most important thing to budgeting! Out of these budget tips, this is the most important one.
You have to have a why. If you can’t convince yourself or give yourself good reasons to be on a budget, then you won’t go anywhere. You have to come up with goals and ways that you can achieve those goals.
Whenever I find myself lingering too long in the dreaming head-space as we pass by beautiful new flooring and shiny light fixtures in Home Depot, I remind myself of our goals.
Sometimes I feel poor being on a budget, but being on a budget doesn’t mean you can’t afford that. It means you’re choosing not to have that so later on you can have this.
Read that again. I think that is such an important reminder. So when you see what other people seem to have or you see what you wish you could have, realize that if you budget correctly and really focus on your goals then later on you can have a much bigger reward.
You will have to sacrifice things in order to get to your goal. It’s hard not to focus on the current want and see the future reward. But trust me, making small sacrifices on your journey will help you get to the finish line faster.
Let’s say you are planning a road trip and your goal is to get to your destination (maybe sunny Florida) as quickly as possible to enjoy those gorgeous, white beaches.
You have two options. You can either stop and get food at different restaurants along the way, trying out different menus at various locations OR you can pack food and eat along the way. The first one definitely sounds more fun and enjoyable along the way, but it takes you much longer to get to your destination. So you’ll have less time to sink your toes in that white sand and less money to spend when you get there.
Do you see my point? I’m not trying to plan your vacation or suggesting that’s what you do. I’m just trying to help you see the perspective of having a goal (destination) and options on how to get there. Option one sounds appealing in the moment, but how will you feel when you have reached your goal?
Unfortunately, people being financially stuck or in debt is a much larger time frame and a much larger amount of money lost than that analogy. You have to make sacrifices and in order to do that, you have to be able to get out of the dreaming head-space and tell yourself: being on a budget doesn’t mean I can’t afford that. It means I’m choosing not to have that so later on I can have this.
So while it would be nice to try out different restaurants along your journey, it will only delay you and make it so you can’t do as much in the end.
2. Write Down Your Goals and Watch Your Spending
This sounds obvious, right? Well, unfortunately out of these three budget tips, this one gets neglected the most. It doesn’t get done in most homes. And honestly, it wasn’t getting done here.
My husband and I have both always been financially smart and both of us were able to buy our own houses at young ages.
Before we got married, we created financial goals that we both agreed on but we never really chatted about how to implement them. We both watched our bank accounts and knew how much we wanted in each account and we were smart about our spending. But for some reason, we still weren’t hitting our goals when we wanted to.
It was frustrating! We couldn’t figure out why we were living so tightly, buying inexpensive things and still not reaching our goals.
Finally, we sat down and wrote everything out. We wrote down every single thing we spent in one month and put it into a category. Then we looked at the categories and grouped them by importance. So at the top of the list was our bills- things we can’t change the amount on.
Next on the list were things that were important, but we could make cuts to them if we had to- like groceries or gas.
Then at the bottom of the list were items that were luxuries- eating out, subscriptions, music apps and television. That is where we cut. And we slaughtered it!
We decided to completely stop eating out and limiting it to maybe once a month. Boom, that saved us a couple hundred dollars a month. This included getting coffees at coffee shops, getting snacks or buying lunch during work hours or treating ourselves when we go out. We stopped all of it.
We also limited our subscriptions and music apps to one and stopped paying for TV. That’s right. No TV, no Netflix, no Hulu and no satellite. We do have free apps and some movies but we didn’t spend a lot of time watching TV in the first place so it isn’t a huge loss for us. But it has allowed us to not have that distraction and get much more done.
Because of all the changes we made, we immediately started seeing results and crushing financial goals much faster than we had planned.
So write down your goals! Check them weekly or biweekly and make sure you’re doing things correctly. I can’t stress this enough. We thought we were doing really well and making all the right choices. We weren’t doing all that we could.
So look at your budget. Can you cut anywhere?
3. Create a Budget Category for Home Projects
At this point you might be thinking, “Decor, Shannon! I’m here to figure out how I can fit it in my budget! Address that!” And here is where I’ll talk about that, but you needed to know basics about budgeting first. In order to be able to figure out how things will work in your budget, you have to have a strong one.
I just went over roughly how we categorize our budget. Start by writing everything down. At the top of the page write down your monthly income. Then write down your categories and how much you spend in each one. Subtract everything from your income. If you have money left over then you can now create a new category for home decor and projects.
If not, then try to see if you can cut somewhere else.
Definitely don’t get caught in a bind over this! Home decor is a luxury, not a need. If your budget doesn’t allow you to create a whole category for projects, that’s okay! There are ways inexpensively update your home.
Check out 20 Budget-Friendly Home Decor Ideas-Update the Look of Your Home if you’re looking for inexpensive ideas to update your home.
As of right now my husband and I don’t have a specific category for home projects. We are currently just watching our budget and if we have money left over (after we’ve already saved some and put extra toward loans) then we will do a small project or get some items that we’ve been wanting around the house.
We have a lot of projects that we want to do around the house- some are necessary and some are just cosmetic wishes. When we hit one of our specific financial goals, we’re planning on creating a budget category for those projects around the house and hopefully we can crank through them a lot faster.
Conclusion
Budgeting takes time. There’s no easy shortcut or magic money-making tree seed I can give you. Just be smart. Try out these budget tips.
Figure out what goals you truly want and focus on them. You might not be at the same speed as your neighbor and your house might not be as updated, but I can guarantee that if you stick with a strong budget and do things the smart way, you will reap the rewards in the end.
“A man reaps what he sows.” -Galatians 6:7B
I hope you found these budget tips helpful! I’d love to hear about your own budget tips and how they help you reach your financial goals.
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