Tag Archives: goodbudget

What Are Some of the Smallest Baby Step Lifestyle Changes You’ve Made in Your Thirties?

March 30, 2017 By in Grab Bag, Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s amazing how habits take shape and slowly, incrementally change the structure of our lives. I feel like it’s usually not the big, sweeping ‘grand decisions’ made in bold statements that change our lives (ie most New Years Resolutions, most “I’ll never drink again!” statements, most “no more sugar for life” proclamations, etc), but actually the small changes made in private moments and repeated again and again that actually make a major long term impact.

In the past year, I’ve made a few changes- most of them arbitrarily or unpremeditated. But these particular changes have slowly but surely changed my everyday patterns of thinking and feeling. Here’s a list of the ones the made the biggest impact.

1. Deleting the Facebook app from my phone- I did this in a moment of pain and anguish on election night back in November. I mean, you get it. But I never put the app back, and that in turn has me going on Facebook a whole lot less. Which in turn frees up a lot of my time. Which also in turn really tones down a bad habit I have of comparing myself to others. I still go onto Facebook and read stuff and post things, but the amount of time I spend on the site has decreased immeasurably. Results of deleting Facebook app on my phone: I feel happier and have more time. And I still have Facebook so I don’t even feel any weird “I deleted my profile feel sorry for me” stress or Fear Of Missing Out.

2. Starting to make green smoothies full of vegetables – I’ve made green smoothies on and off for a few years now, but it’s only recently that I followed nutritionist Kimberly Snyder’s basic recipe for her diet staple: the Glowing Green Smoothie. This smoothie is made up of all vegetables with the inclusion of an apple, almond milk or water, and some stevia. She includes a bit more fruit but I’d rather eat that fruit separately. This smoothie is the equivalent of having something like three or four salads before lunch, without all that annoying chewing. The ingredients of my smoothie, if you want to try it, are a head of romaine, either a bunch of celery or a large cucumber, a handful or two of spinach leaves, a handful of cilantro, an apple, half a lemon, stevia to taste, ice, and a bunch of almond milk or water. Results: I put a TON of nutrients in my body before I have time to think about anything or eat a bunch of nonsense food. Therefore my mind feels clearer and my body feels happy.

3. Tracking my spending- I wrote about this in the post How Tracking Money is Like Weighing Yourself and then again in The Anti-Budget Budget In Your Thirties. I began using the app Goodbudget to track each and every dollar I’ve spent. I started this back in June, and it was very painful. I didn’t want to track every dollar because I felt like I knew where every dollar went already, and the whole thing felt tedious and filled me with guilt whenever I spent a penny. However, after about a month and a half it all got a lot smoother and easier. I realized exactly where my money was going each month and that small purchases really add up to way more than I thought. I swear I’ve saved a ton of money simply by writing down my expenditures- because I think about where my money’s going every time I spend it. And I feel more accountable for a purchase if I know I have to write it down and it goes into my monthly total.

All of these small activities have added up to big change in my life. Are there any small changes you’d like to start or have recently begun? Don’t worry about those big, scary changes- concentrate on a little tiny change every day, or even every other day. Don’t underestimate what seem like small tweaks- they add up.

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The Anti-Budget Budget In Your Thirties

July 23, 2016 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Although Jane and I both very recently wrote articles about how we’ve been tracking every dollar we spend lately, (check out Jane’s Budgeting article Saving Money Like You’re In the Depression Era and my budgeting article How Tracking Money is Like Weighing Yourself), I want to write here about a way to possibly not track your money at all.

This is kind of the method I was unofficially using before I started tracking every dollar this past month using the Goodbudget app. The method involves taking a savings percentage off the top of your income before you spend any of your money on anything else. The word “savings” is general and can include any of the below:

–Contributions to an Emergency Fund

-Contributions to any savings account

-Contributions to a retirement account – such as a 401K, an IRA, or a Roth IRA.

-Paying down any debt- such as a student loan, a credit card, or accelerating your mortgage payments.

-Contributions to your child’s college fund- such as a 529 Plan.

So here’s how to live the anti-budget life:

  1. The second you get paid, decide on a percentage of your income to contribute towards savings.

2. If you never save anything, you can start with as little as 1% to save. The way to figure this out is to simply knock 2 zeros off the amount. So if you get paid $2000 biweekly, contribute $20 every time you get paid. Make $1000 biweekly, contribute $10 every time you get paid.

3. If you’ve been saving already, for retirement, for a house, to pay down credit card debt, to have a good emergency fund- saving for anything really- then you can easily incorporate this tactic to make saving money even easier. Whenever you make any money, save a certain percentage towards any and all of your goals. I usually do it this way- the second I get paid, I put 10 percent towards my emergency fund, 10 percent towards retirement, and 10 percent towards throwing extra money at my student loans.

With this tactic, you can then try not budgeting the rest but instead spend it comfortably knowing that you’ve already saved what you needed to.

Of course, you’ll need to make sure your bills, like rent and utilities, are paid before you spend the rest freely, but you will still be able to spend without budgeting every  dollar.

Check out another anti-budget budget article by the awesome finance blogger and podcaster Paula Pant of Afford Anything- she lives by this strategy and goes into immense detail about it in The Easiest Budget to Follow- Shockingly Simple.

Give this strategy a try, especially if you hate budgets, and let us know how it works for you! It’s nice and simple!

 

How Tracking Money Is Like Weighing Yourself

July 10, 2016 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Recently, I’ve gotten in the habit of tracking every single dollar I spend. Jane, in her last money post, Saving Money Like You’re In the Depression Era, just wrote about tracking all of her money, bit by bit. As we’ve always suspected, Jane and I must have a psychic connection because I had just started doing the same thing with my money.

The reason it’s amazing that we both started tracking money at the same time is because we have been adamant about NOT tracking money in the past. It made both of us extremely nervous to track money- we always felt like we were frugal enough and that tracking every dollar stopped us from enjoying the tiny indulgences in life.

I began tracking money because I realized that my dollars were disappearing faster than I’d like. I’m an extremely frugal person, so money mysteriously disappearing irritated me greatly. Since I don’t make a budget from month to month, I rely on my frugality alone to keep me in check. Since that didn’t seem to be working anymore, I went over my credit card statements and was amazed to see that so many little tiny $4.00 or $6.00 purchases had added up. In some cases tiny purchases had added up to hundreds of dollars!

I had attempted to track my spending a few times in the past (giving up after maybe 2 days) and those times I’d used pen and paper to write down whenever I bought something. That wasn’t the best option for me because I’d lose the paper I wrote the expenditures on, so this time I downloaded two money tracking apps- things are easier to keep control of electronically. After playing with both apps, I really started using and enjoying this one called Goodbudget. It’s free in the App Store (and probably the Android Google Play store too). The app is great because it’s simple and it allows me to make categories of spending so I can see where I’m spending the bulk of my money. Whenever I buy something that doesn’t fit into my previous categories, I simply add a new category.

With my trusty new money tracking app, Goodbudget, I’ve succeeded in tracking every dollar of my money for a few weeks now. That’s a record for me! And what’s really interesting is that I spend less money because I’m more aware of my money being spent..and it kind of bothers me to see the amount of money I’m spending go up uncomfortably high right in front of my face. So I question some tiny purchases (a latte here or there, a new shirt, however affordable), that I would’ve otherwise barely thought twice about if I hadn’t been keeping my monthly expenditure right in front of me. Now I know how quickly small costs can add up.

I always hated weighing myself too, because the scale made me nervous and anxious in the past, but I’ve found that it really does help me to have a number in front of my face to keep me accountable.

If you haven’t tried budgeting apps- even if just to write down all your purchases the way I have- I recommend giving one of them (such as Goodbudget) a try. Even if you’re frugal, you may be spending more money than you realize. And when you stop spending money mindlessly on things, you’ll have more of it to spend on the tiny luxuries you actually love.

 

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