Budget, budget, budget! One word that sounds so serious, that I don't care for and probably never really need in my life ... or do I?
Yes, yes you do. Everyone needs a B-U-D-G-E-T! Old or young, rich, not so rich and ..... ehem ... the poor? Well I hesitated there because come to think of it, you actually become poor without a budget. Oh yes. It doesn't matter how huge or small your income is, your social status or rating, popularity or lack of it thereof, you can become poor on a huge income without a budget.
A budget is a financial plan in which you tell or instruct your money on what to do and where to go. It is absolute foolishness to expect to get rich without putting a financial plan in place first before spending money. If you think your income is so great that it doesn't matter if you just draw on it whenever there is a need and it won't ever run out, then you must be nominated for the joker of the year award.
My man, Chris Hogan (one of Dave Ramsey's tribe) along with a team of Dave Ramsey's and other professionals recently concluded a survey on 10 million millionaires in a bid to discover how they got to be so rich, and it is shocking even to me to discover that most of these millionaire personalities were from among every day normal people with normal paychecks. What I would call middle or low level income earners. Can you digest that for a moment? I believe more of that information will be made available in his soon to be published book "Everyday Millionaires". (I understand that this book hits book stands in January of 2019, so it would be a good idea to watch out for it. I also understand that you can pre-order the book and in so doing get some attractive bonuses included in your order).
Mind you, if your net worth is at least one million in whatever currency you operate with, you are already a millionaire and you just only need to build on those numbers. This shows us that getting rich is not because of a high earning job but because of ones lifestyle/habits with money. I mean high earning people mostly did not make the list in Chris Hogan's research! Wow! How weird.
Mind you, if your net worth is at least one million in whatever currency you operate with, you are already a millionaire and you just only need to build on those numbers. This shows us that getting rich is not because of a high earning job but because of ones lifestyle/habits with money. I mean high earning people mostly did not make the list in Chris Hogan's research! Wow! How weird.
Now, if a budget is a financial plan where you instruct your money on what to do, after you are done making your budget (telling your money what to do and where to go), the budget then turns around and becomes the boss as it then begins to tell you what to do. This means that after your budget is made, you should strive to ensure that you stick to the budget. When you stick to your budget it is actually telling you what to do. Just like a building plan guides builders on what needs to be done to get a building up and functioning, your budget is the blueprint you need to set up your life to function right.
I have been in situations where I tried to go a while without a budget even after discovering its importance and I can boldly tell you that it threw me into avoidable chaos. The sad part is that I let myself relapse and it took me another slow and painful journey to set things right again. More of it will come up in my soon to be published post, "Relapse!". An experience I certainly do not care for and which left me so much grief. I mean imagine putting things right in your everyday life financially and then like a pack of crumbled cards you let everything of your earlier efforts get so scattered that you are left in a seeming maze so to speak, because of lack of a very much needed budget. It is certainly not a good feeling to have put your life in some sort of order that is working for you and then have it all jumbled up with a snap of your own fingers. Just like that!
You are more likely not to follow through on a plan if you do not have it all set up either on your budget app or in writing. I actually subscribe to combining both methods. That is mobile app and good ol' writing in a book.They both have their advantages. First off, a mobile app can get to almost any where with you so that you can easily whip it out and key in figures as you go along and then go back home to reconcile your transactions on paper. I have however, seen people who literally go every where with a book to write in as they go. What ever suits you (even if it means using just the app or just the book) is okay so long as you keep a budget and use it.
There are several apps that I have tried for free from google play store (because I use an android phone, duh..lol). There are actually many good budgeting apps I came across and tried. What I was doing was to download say a couple and try them out and if I feel it was lacking in what I felt I needed, I would just uninstall, research some more, download other apps and try those out as well until I finally got some that I was sure addressed my needs. Now I am in no way claiming to have tried every budgeting app out there but I can say that I have tried out quite a bit. I also have an account with Dave Ramsey's Every Dollar app on desktop as it says it is not available on smart phones from my location (so said my google play store). However, I didn't like that it didn't have enough currencies options. I mean why would I use dollars if my operating currency is naira? I have nothing against the app, in fact it is a great innovation from a financial freedom crusader like Dave. The only currency is the U.S. and Canadian currencies if I remember correctly.
By the way new and even better budgeting apps are appearing on google play store like every moment these days and these new apps appear to have features that address realistic needs more as compared to older apps. I want to believe that the spreading knowledge of the need for budgeting is the catalyst behind this.
Now there were several in my selected app options but after putting in much thought and studying their behaviours towards my expectations, I finally settled for the following:
By the way new and even better budgeting apps are appearing on google play store like every moment these days and these new apps appear to have features that address realistic needs more as compared to older apps. I want to believe that the spreading knowledge of the need for budgeting is the catalyst behind this.
Now there were several in my selected app options but after putting in much thought and studying their behaviours towards my expectations, I finally settled for the following:
Do not get me wrong, I had to finally choose these two to serve particular purposes and to free up some space in my mobile phone which was getting crowded. There were some apps I reluctantly uninstalled because they were also great but then it is just the one me right? I had to make definite choices. Also note that I am in no way advertising these apps. I have not been paid to do that. I am just putting out there what I have tried and I'm still using. There were those that were so good but one little thing or the other made them not just okay for my needs. The issues are so minor that they may probably have been fixed in the developers' next updates maybe.
I chose two apps like I said for distinct purposes. "Money Manager Expense & Budget" (by Realbyte
Inc.) was aimed to set up all my financial budget. Every single one of them including bank balances and what not. Now I am still old school enough to be extremely cautious about linking my bank accounts in real time to such random apps and so although I came across several that you could link to your actual bank accounts, that was the very criterium with which I screened out or disqualified such apps as not feasible for me. It was just probably my cautious side in overdrive.You may not have the misgivings I nurse about online activities with your bank accounts to the extent of avoiding apps with such features, so, you do you. 
Money Manager turned out to be so good to use because it caters to as many accounts that you can actually use in life (I believe lol..). However, that would be in the paid version of course which by the way, is so very cheap. The free version allows for only ten accounts and I believe many of us can actually work well with that number too. So from my view, you could make do with the free version. The free version has ads but unlike many free apps with ads out there, I noticed that the ads do not ever get in the way, which is a very good thing. I am presently making use of the free version even though I had tried to purchase the app several times before so that I could syn it on my desktop version but for some reason I have not been able to successfully complete the transactions. I can't say that I know what the hitch in making payment really is. I have complained to google who had a look at my mode of payment and confirmed that they had a good working relationship with my bankers and advised me to contact the developers which I did and the developers referred me back to google saying that google has control of such transactions, so at some point I just gave up trying and settled for the free version instead. To date it is working well for me.
Money Manager takes some getting used to but not complicated at all. You just need to understand where every thing is and what their functions are. There is also a user guide/tutorial too. This should make you see how good I think this app really is. Another plus for Money Manager is that the paid version has a desktop connection to your mobile version.
If you have been following my blog, you know then that I am a subscriber of the cash envelope system. So, the second app is actually one designed solely for cash envelope users. How cool is that? You can generate an unlimited number of envelopes, I believe. This app is the "Simple Budget". It is absolutely free but only available for android users. It also does not connect to the internet. This means that all your data is stored locally in your phone. It is however an advantage for those of us who are being very careful of the internet for sensitive data. Simple Budget app enables you create as many envelopes as you need for your different cash envelope categories. To these envelopes you can assign cash budgets periodically (for me it is monthly) and then spend from these envelopes. One cool thing about this app is that at a glance you can see all your envelopes, the budget amounts assigned to each envelopes and the balances left after spending from each envelope.
You can choose the option of letting your end of the period balances to roll over to the next period or not (Money Manager has this feature too).
You can choose the option of letting your end of the period balances to roll over to the next period or not (Money Manager has this feature too).
Initially I was using just the Money Manager whilst keeping an eye out for any other app that could probably do better for me. I had not thought at this point that Money Manager could be adopted for the cash envelope system. During this time too, I came across a you-tuber who mentioned Money Manager as one of the mobile budgeting app to give a try which could be used for the cash envelope system too. I think a blogger I came across at one point said something quite similar. Can't remember exactly now (I wish I had paid attention to these sites, I would have left a link to them here), but that suggestion is what opened my eyes to try it out for the cash envelope system as well. It took me observing the app for a short while before I figured it out. I began to use it for everything budgeting, including my cash envelopes. I still kept my physical cash envelopes too (those for me are certainly not optional) so I just watched and ensured that everything agreed in their balances at all times.
What I do is that at the end of each month, I set up my budget for the next month using Money Manager. Everything about my budget is broken down in it and in my financial notebook. After I have determined my cash envelope needs for the new month, I disburse the lump-sum amount into my envelopes in my Simple Budget app while the actual or physical cash is split up and put into my physical cash envelopes categories which I keep at home. Like I mentioned in my post Cash Envelope System, I only keep my cash needs for a week or two at a time for security reasons.
Since I now have the Simple Budget app for cash envelopes, what I do is to record the total amount assigned to my cash envelopes and enter it as one of the accounts transacted with in my Money Manager app (in this instance, cash). This means that as I show that I have withdrawn my cash needs for my envelopes say for a week, from my bank account, it is shown in my Money Manager as having been transferred from my bank account to cash. This means cash available to spend for that period. In my Simple Budget, the same exact cash amount is what I distribute to the various envelopes according of course to my budget for each envelope category. So, after all said and done, the same cash amount is also physically split up into my physical envelope categories. That way, what I have in total in my physical cash envelopes must be equivalent to what I have as cash in Money Manager and as total of the Simple Budget envelopes. Don't worry it is much easier than I am explaining.
I stopped the cash envelopes on Money Manager, but not immediately. It took me some time to do that. I started by keeping cash envelopes on both apps until I was confident to use just the Simple Budget. It honestly wasn't easy having to duplicate transactions in both apps and that was what made me decide to separate the functions of both apps for me. Having these apps helped me to ensure that transactions are recorded on the go so nothing is omitted and/or forgotten. Truth be told however, it is not enough to install these apps. You need to determine to use them. I had times when I used to forget they were even in my phone until I began to make conscious effort to whip out my phone immediately after every transaction, no matter where I was, just so that I did not miss anything.
Since I now have the Simple Budget app for cash envelopes, what I do is to record the total amount assigned to my cash envelopes and enter it as one of the accounts transacted with in my Money Manager app (in this instance, cash). This means that as I show that I have withdrawn my cash needs for my envelopes say for a week, from my bank account, it is shown in my Money Manager as having been transferred from my bank account to cash. This means cash available to spend for that period. In my Simple Budget, the same exact cash amount is what I distribute to the various envelopes according of course to my budget for each envelope category. So, after all said and done, the same cash amount is also physically split up into my physical envelope categories. That way, what I have in total in my physical cash envelopes must be equivalent to what I have as cash in Money Manager and as total of the Simple Budget envelopes. Don't worry it is much easier than I am explaining.
I stopped the cash envelopes on Money Manager, but not immediately. It took me some time to do that. I started by keeping cash envelopes on both apps until I was confident to use just the Simple Budget. It honestly wasn't easy having to duplicate transactions in both apps and that was what made me decide to separate the functions of both apps for me. Having these apps helped me to ensure that transactions are recorded on the go so nothing is omitted and/or forgotten. Truth be told however, it is not enough to install these apps. You need to determine to use them. I had times when I used to forget they were even in my phone until I began to make conscious effort to whip out my phone immediately after every transaction, no matter where I was, just so that I did not miss anything.
The cool thing about using apps such as these is that you can easily know how much you have left for each budget category on the go. Just at a glance without having to think really hard or make erroneous mental calculations and/or assumptions. This way you know if you have sufficient money for a particular transaction or not and keep yourself within your budget. Also try to reconcile your accounts on a daily basis as much as possible. Preferably before the day is out.
I need to sound here again that doing all of these is not the solution to your money habits on their own. The real solution is YOU making conscious effort to make use of all these budgeting tools at your disposal. It is at that point that you begin to see real results.
A budget that you do not use can not help you in any way. Just like making lecture notes that you never study can not help you pass your school exams.
If you are a budgeter and/or a cash envelope system fan and user, leave your comments on what method you use and what is working for you.
If you are a budgeter and/or a cash envelope system fan and user, leave your comments on what method you use and what is working for you.