Hey, hon. Do you know what word really upsets people nowadays?
The B word. Wait, what'd you call me? Guys, I'm not talking
about the B word. I'm talking about budgeting which is also a
term that upsets people when they hear it but we're here to
bring you information that makes it simple and not so
stressful. So, hey, are we ready to do this? Cuz I am so
ready. Let's do it. Alright, guys. So, jumping right in. It
is time to talk about everyone's favorite budgeting
which is why I'm assuming you clicked on this video. All I
need when it comes to budgeting is a pen, piece of paper, and
the receipts. Calculator checkbook. Okay, that was good.
Let's talk about like the reason we need a budget. Humans
need discipline. I know we think that is only a thing
children need when they grow up but there's something about
hitting adulthood and thinking you have the freedom to just
buy whatever, eat whatever. I'm pretty sure that's where the
freshman 15 comes from now that I think about it. We I'll turn
18 we go to college and we're like yay I can eat whatever I
want and then metabolism goes like creating and sticking to
this budget is going to be the foundation to your success if
you've seen our other videos you know that we are debt free
we're very excited about being debt free because of the
financial freedom and we continue to budget we continue
to track our receipts and our expenses and we continue to
limit ourselves you have to really sit down figure out what
you're already spending your money on and decide what your
limits are because everybody is different. Let me giving you
example. When we've initially looked at our expenses and
realized how much we were spending on coffee to go, we
created a budget that said, alright, we're spending a lot
on coffee on the go. So, let's cut it back. Fast forward to
today, we don't ever buy coffee on the go unless it's a special
occasion if we're maybe we're on our way to a vacation or
maybe it's if it's a birthday. Now, let's talk about food
because everyone out says food is not a want food is a need
and yeah you are correct food is a need but there are times
where people will make it a want ordering take out going to
restaurant several times a week when the amount you spend at a
restaurant for a couple of two you could buy groceries for an
entire week just make the budget according to your
lifestyle for example if you have a young child then
something in your budget would be clothing for your kids
because I hear they grow out of their pretty fast the way our
budget look three years ago is totally different from what it
looks now because our life is constantly changing just like
yours you have to adapt you're constantly improving do what
works for you do what fits your lifestyle so what I'm going to
do now is what I need you guys to do if you haven't already
take all the receipts I have compare it to my bank
statements and just track all my expenses so what I'm
going to do is we're going to say June of two thousand twenty
is this month and the first category is bills. You're
going to put things like your cellphone, let's say it was
$160. Let's say your rent's like $800 a month. Let's put
car payment in here and let's just say your car payments like
$320. Let's say credit card bill. That's a popular one.
Credit card, if you have multiple credit cards, I would
be putting each credit card on here. So, you understand bills
section. We're putting our bills. We're putting money that
we pay routinely, monthly, our living expenses basically.
Remember guys, I want you to put your bills on this paper. I
want you to put what your cellphone bill is. I want you
to put what your rent slash more I'm just giving you
examples of what to write. The next category I like to do and
I think it applies to everyone is groceries. In groceries, I
like to just put groceries and let me just throw it out there.
I don't put any alcohol purchases in groceries, okay? I
actually have a separate category for alcohol because I
just think it's important to not drink a lot. So, if you're
going to buy wine, if you're going to buy a case of beer, I
understand that you can buy alcohol in some states at the
grocery store so that's where the fun comes in you have to
itemize that and go through and say out of here what is alcohol
and what is food talking about groceries just write your
totals so you went through your receipts and you went to the
grocery store yesterday and you only spent $18 2 days ago
before that it was a big order so maybe you spent like $84
because you needed to feed the whole family eighty-4 nine to
five that's what we're going to write and so on and so on and
so on for entire month you put what you're spending on your
groceries another category which I think is really
important it pertains to restaurants slash takeout.
Anything you're not cooking on your own like buying groceries
and taking home and preparing. I think this category is
important because it shows you how much you could've saved if
you just bought groceries versus going out to eat. You
will notice that your groceries and restaurants category like
counteracts each other. You know, I like to go out to eat
and I don't want to completely tell myself no. So, I'm
going to set a limit of maybe $100 a month of going out to
eat and once I hit that limit, it's all groceries there. We
got some fast food. It was $21. We went out to eats with the
whole family and it cost $6$68 and 48 cents with the tip along
with having receipts. I'm comparing the total on my
receipt. If you use your card versus cash, I like to make
sure that what I put for the tip is correlating with what
shows up on the bank statement. Gas or slash fuel is another
category and that is one where you can't really say I've
reached my limit and I'm just going to have to run out of gas
in the middle of the street. Let's put some totals in here
so this looks good. We filled up 2114 and then we filled up
when we were in California. So, it was $46. Don't see that you
spend about $60 in gas a month and say, well, I'm just
going to make it 120 because it just doesn't make sense. Some
people have medical expenses that they have to deal with.
So, I would put that in the category and same thing, it is
not to limit yourself but it's just to keep track of how much
you every month so when someone says you know how much you
spend a year on insulin syringes you can actually go
back in your budget and look and see and plan your life
ahead of time. Toiletries can get a little out of control. So
I like to put that in a separate category because
everybody will justify getting the best lotion and the most
high tech toilet cleaner you can ever imagine. 1718 say you
went to Costco. And it was $64 Are you guys with me.
Fantastic. Let's keep it rolling. I'm here. I'm not
losing you guys. I'm staying with you til the end. If you
did a parking meter for 50 cents somewhere, put it down.
When you start skipping small purchases because you're like,
oh it was just a dollar. It was just $2. It was my friend
needed five bucks. That's when you know, you start to fall off
the track and then eventually, you're going to start skipping
the bigger purchases and then you're just going to go back to
your old habits. This is kind of a no brainer because you're
literally sitting down, tracking your expenses we have
a financial video where we explain that this is the first
step you should do if you want to get a hold of your
finances. So, tracking expenses and budgeting is like the
blueprint to your financial success. If someone came up to
you and said, how much a year do you spend on groceries?
You're going to be like, I don't know. That was a really
weird thing to ask but seriously, you might not know
off the top of your head but you should be able to be like,
hold on, let me check. If you were a person that follows Dave
Ramsey because we are big Dave Ramsey people and I know
there's a lot of you out there. He would like to have you save
up for three to six months of your living expenses in case of
an emergency. A lot of people don't really know what that is.
So, by tracking your expenses, creating a budget, limit
yourself. You'll be able to someday save up for a three to
six-month emergency and hopefully not be in a bad
situation in the future if you already were. This is the power
that you hold for your financial success. It is all up
to you. No one is going to stand at the grocery store and
be like, you really need that almond milk and you're going to
be like, well, thank goodness you were there. No, I don't
really think I do. You are your own resource. You are the
person that's going to know what you should be spending
your money on. Start making limits. Start following them.
If you're brave and you want to succeed more, you will start to
draw those limits back and you'll spend less and you'll
notice you'll have better savings at the end of the
month. That was a lot to go over. That's a lot to digest.
Just breathe for a second. I feel like I'm talking to
myself. If you guys found this video helpful in the first step
to budgeting because there is some more stuff we need to talk
about and Kyle is the Excel expert when it comes to
creating a nice little spreadsheet and I know there's
a lot of people interested in that and that is going to be an
upcoming video. We don't want to throw too much at you
at once. We just want to get into the basics of budgeting
and I really hope you guys gain some information from this
because I really want to like throw that inspiration out at
you I really want to help you guys give this video a like
throw in some comments related to your financial goals and why
you want to budget I want to hear from you I'll know if you
don't do it if you haven't yet hit the subscribe button
because we want you to be part of our journey our channel
focuses on simple living and then also living life to the
fullest until next time guys much love from Happily Ever
Hanks take care now. Whoo. What you rolling right now? Let's
talk. Oops. I can't even remember how to spell
toiletries. Until next time. Yeah.