The Ninth Budget of the Year in Review

It’s that time of the month again where I share the ninth budget of the year in review as a way to document my budgeting and money moves I made last month. I started this series at the beginning of the year as a way to keep me accountable but also to help those of you who are not confident with budgeting. One of my favourite life quotes reads, “if you can’t manage small money, you won’t know how to manage big money” obviously substituted ‘things’ with ‘money’ but the message remains.

I have been budgeting for most of my adult life but that doesn’t mean I am perfect at it, far from it but every month I am learning something new from others and also from how I manage my money. For me what is important is understanding the power of money, how I can make it work for me so I can achieve financial freedom and how I can help others to feel confident managing their money. Last month I sold over 70 copies of my budget trackers from my Etsy shop, this tells me people are ready to get hold of their finances and are looking for simple tools that can help them achieve that.

The Ninth Budget of the year in review

The ninth budget of the year in review, aims to share how I manage my money, educate you on how you can manage your money and inspire you to start budgeting regardless of your income. People often complain about how budget restricts them but I always say people make budgets restrictive and not the other way round. When you find a budgeting style that works for you, everything else just falls into place and all you do is make sure the numbers balance.

I follow two budgeting styles, a zero-based budget and a 50-30-20 money rule budget both which work for me very well. So the Zero-based budget is a budgeting style where your income minus your expenses equates to zero, this doesn’t mean a zero bank balance just that you allocate every single penny a job. Some of the jobs I give my money include; money for savings, money for shopping etc., you can give your money whatever job you want it to do. The 50-30-20 money rule asks you to allocate 50% of income to your needs (rent, food, utilities), 30% to wants (Netflix, shopping, takeaway) and 20% to savings or to debt if you have any. Choose the one that works for you and your budget will be seamless and won’t cause you anxiety because everything will be how you want it.

During my drafting of the ninth budget of the year in review, I had to sit down and pause, think about what I could have done differently and what I want to improve on next. I love budgeting but there are times when it can feel overwhelming and on those days I often choose to take a breather and attack the budget from another angle or do it another day. Some people work best by tracking their expenses every single day on paper and then transfer to excel whilst others prefer to only review their bank statements. I am the former and track my expenses daily as that helps me to plan better for the rest of the week/month.

So, what could I have done differently in September with respect to my budget? Even though I overspent in two categories, I still came under budget but if I had resisted my impulse buying I wouldn’t have gone over my allocated amount. I overspent in miscellaneous because I bought two apps that within 3 weeks I had decided I didn’t need and deleted them, I wasted £25 because of that, so this is something I would have done differently.

What do I want to improve on next in the month of October? Last month I was able to send almost £2000 to my savings, my goal is to beat last month’s goal and actually save £2000+ and if I can do that I will achieve one of the biggest financial goals I have this year of saving £10,000 before the end of the year. Every single month I make a point of looking back at the good that I did (financially speaking) and seeing how I can improve on that.

Other Money related posts you might have missed

• Which is better, cash or card? This post brought a nice conversation in the comments about why people choose what they choose but it looks like cash is slowly fading from our high street in part due to COVID and companies not accepting cash transactions and in part because contactless is the future.
• How do use credit cards responsibly – again this topic was one that allowed people to discuss why they don’t have/use credit cards and how some wish they had this information when they got their first credit card.
• 5 things to do immediately after you get paid – another greatly interactive post, people saw what they could do with their money after pay day to ensure money worked for them more than they worked for it.

Over on my YouTube channel this week I will be sharing three videos: September 2021 budget close out which is the video version on the ninth budget of the year in review, low income budget – I will give an example of how to budget on low income and finally my Q3 2021 net worth update – I am just over £20k short of having a net worth on £300,000 which I am very pleased about.

Have you done a budget recap of your September budget yet? What are some of your proud moments with respect to your budget last month?