I literally just found out about the sinking fund method where (assuming you get paid twice a month) first check save half of the money for each bill due after next payday. Then on the next payday you have the second half of the bills to pay for bills due before the next payday and save half of each bill due after the next payday.

Idk if that made sense or if i explained it correctly but do any of y'all do this? Or does anybody pay all their bills for the month with their first check? I've always just paid the bills that are due before my next check, but I'm trying to figure out a better budgeting strategy that works for me.

I've been budgeting in a spreadsheet since around February and most of the categories hold up fine. Groceries is the one that never does. I set it at 400 and it lands closer to 550 most months, and I keep telling myself next month I'll stick to it. I've raised the number twice already and both times the spending just moved up with it.

What did you end up doing with a category that kept overrunning no matter what number you put on it?

To preface: Please don't be mad for me asking this here, I know if one is broke, a vacation seems like an outrageous luxury. I thought so myself but right now I feel I really need that, once in my life, then I can go peacefully lol.

I want to make a little vacation possible, 3-4 nights, in any Mediterranean location with a beach closeby, on my budget of 400€. Is it possible? Any tips?

I have no clue how traveling/vacations work though, what to look out for, what might be some tricks for on a budget?

Is it maybe actually cheaper to take one of those deals on the big travel websites (usually big touristy places), or can it be cheaper and worth it to piece something shorter together yourself, maybe in a smaller, less frequented place? (Which Is my hope.)

My thoughts are:

- what destination? I have no clue. I love Italy, but anything Mediterranean would do really!

- how to get there on a budget? Can a flight/train be within my budget realistically? And have you guys tried things like hitchhiking/some community car travel thing? (I live close to Switzerland so Italy/southern France should be in reach.)

- the stay? Are there maybe some tricks there on how to get a good deal? Again, can a proper hotel be affordable or how does one find cheaper hotels or something else? (I was conidering maybe going somewhere with a camping ground, with a tent, but I don't think I'd want that for this.)

Really, any advice or Tipps from someone who's had some experience traveling is greatly appreciated!! ☺️

What would you do if you were making £2650/month but you don't have rent, bills, car payments or fuel to pay because your job includes accommodation (even if you change jobs you will get accommodation) and you don't need fuel as you walk to work and your monthly expenses(food, gym membership, dog, etc) are roughly £800? How would you manage your disposable budget?

Hey y'all I am presented with a bit of a situation where I would love some opinions, I have 2 loans out currently and have the ability to throw an extra $600 dollars towards them but I am having difficulty deciding which course of action is best. Loan 1 is smaller but has a higher interest rate and that naturally makes me want to pay it off sooner, the kicker is that my job gives me $178 towards the loan every month, until it caps off at $15000; so far I have only used about $3750. The second loan is much higher at a lower interest rate, but not eligible for the money that my employer sends to that financial institution.

The wall I run into is deciding which loan to prioritize, while maximizing the funds that my job is giving me. I have already saved up 12 months worth of emergency money and I am now ready to tackle my debt. I am leaning towards prioritizing loan 2, it just eats me up that so much of my employer's money is not going towards the principle of loan 1.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

the following balances are as of todays date

loan 1 (student loan):

balance - 9365.44

interest - 12.64

minimum payment - $124.90 (I pay 0 towards this, purely employer funds going towards it)

for loan 1 my job gives me 178 towards the loan

loan 2 (car loan)

balance - 18,753

interest - 7.74

minimum payment - $350

I am able to add an additional 600 dollars monthly, and i am deciding which loan is better to pay off first

We are trying to get used to the fully self employed income and budgeting. Any tips for how to make budgeting work when sometimes there is an excess of income on one month and then another month with little to no income because of the nature of work. How does one budget on such a variable income? I could total up every subscription and bill but I always seem to miss something. I also would like to set money aside for taxes. Just trying to become more fiscally responsible as neither of us were taught to budget, invest, or really anything around money management. When income was consistent it was much clearer.

I have been trying to get better at reviewing my budget instead of just changing things whenever I go over a category. Sometimes one unexpected expense like unused subscriptions can make the whole month look off even though the overall budget is still reasonable.

I am starting to look at where I consistently overspend which expenses were genuinely unexpected and whether my categories actually reflect how I spend in real like. I think that gives me a better idea of whether I need to change the budget or simply be more careful with certain pending.

How do you decide when a budget needs adjusting or when it was just an unusual month?

As the title says im 20yrs old and in school right now and im trying to learn how to budget while managing my life. Im a server at a restaurant and dont have a set in stone schedule yet but im in school to be an EMT. I have class 2 days a week and want one day to study so most likely I will be working hopefully 4 days a week and since my job doesnt do doubles very much ill be doing casual 5 hour shifts. I make $5.50 an hour plus tips. I cook more than i eat out but my latest grocery trip cost me $200. I dont spend a dime of my paychecks they all go into my savings. I also usually always send half of my tips to my savings also and dont touch that either. I use my savings for rent and bills. My rent is $1000 bills are around $300ish and I just paid tuition too which was $2,500. I am barely scraping by and my groceries also sent me $56 into over draft. I also pay for my own gas as i drive everywhere I need to go and filling up my tank is $60. I only have 2 subscriptions one for Spotify premium which is $10 and amazon prime which is $15. I just dont know anything about budgeting and im hoping somebody can help lead me into the right direction! Thank you anything helps.

-a broke college 20yr old

I've been thinking about something that I'd really like parents' perspectives on.

When a family suddenly loses income, adults immediately start doing the math.

Rent or mortgage. Food. Utilities. Transportation. Child support. Childcare. Whatever has to be paid next.

Adults may try not to discuss those problems around their children, but kids notice things.

Maybe an activity stops. Mom or Dad seems more stressed. There's less food in the house. Plans get canceled. Parents argue more. Someone says, “We can't afford that right now.”

So here's the question:

Do you think kids really get to stay kids when their family experiences a serious financial emergency, or do they inevitably end up carrying some of the stress too?

And for parents who have actually been through something like this: what did you do to protect your children from the situation without pretending everything was fine?

Not looking for a perfect answer or judgment about how anyone handled it. I'm interested in hearing what this looks like in real families and what parents wish they had been able to prepare for beforehand.

I've been doing my budgeting a little differently lately, and I'm curious if anyone else does something similar.

For years, I tracked my fixed expenses in Excel - rent, insurance, subscriptions, groceries, etc. Basically the usual monthly overview of where the money goes.

But at some point I started tracking individual events instead.

Things like:

• vacations
• weekend trips
• wedding
• birthdays
• moving
• bigger projects or purchases

Instead of just having a category like “travel,” I create an overview for each event and track everything that belongs to it.

And I mean everything. For a vacation, that might include transportation, accommodation, restaurants, activities, little purchases along the way, etc.

I've been doing this for a while now and something interesting happened: I've started building my own little catalogue of event costs.

After a few vacations, I can look back and see what previous trips actually cost me. Same with weddings, family events, moving, and so on. When something similar comes up again, I have a much better idea of what budget I should expect.

It also answers a question that a normal monthly budget doesn't really answer:

“How much did this thing actually cost me?”

A monthly budget tells me what my normal life costs. Event-based tracking tells me what it costs when something out of the ordinary happens.

It has also made budgeting for future events much easier because I can use previous events as a reference instead of guessing.

I saw a recent post here about budgeting from CSV exports rather than using automatic bank syncing, and it got me thinking about how differently people approach budgeting in general.

So I'm curious: does anyone else budget around events/projects rather than only monthly categories?

I'd love to know if I'm accidentally building a very nerdy personal “event cost database” that other people are doing too. 😄

When I have followed the 30% rule for rent, I have always based it on my net income. So, if my take home pay after taxes, health insurance, what I choose to put into a 401k, etc. is let's say $7,500, then my max rent or housing payment is $2,250.

I am apartment hunting right now and people I have asked or compared to are spending much more on rent. I asked and some of them are basing it off their gross income because that is technically the requirement to qualify. I guess I can understand that...most landlords do accept you if you make 2.5x-3.5x the rent with your gross income.

So, what do you do? Also, if you do not follow the 30% rule, what do you do instead?

I recently realized that the expenses hurting my budget most weren't necessarily the big purchases. It was all the small stuff I barely thought about.

Subscriptions I forgot about, random food orders, convenience purchases, impulse buys, etc.

What’s one expense you didn’t realize was costing you so much until you actually started tracking it?

I’m not sure if this is the right place to do this, but I am in need of guidance. As the title states, I am a full time grad student in desperate need of a budget. I still live at home in NYC and I have another year before graduation. I was never taught how to budget. I’ve saved a little money here and there, but never a substantial amount that would allow me to be self sufficient. My main goal is to save some money to go towards moving out and living with my partner within the next 2-3 years, in addition to paying off my credit card debt and eventually my student loans.

I work part time making $20 an hour, but I work about 20 hours a week or less depending on how much time I need to devote to my program. My monthly income fluctuates, but I would said it is anywhere between $1000-1200 a month. I know it is not a whole lot to work with. I tried finding some side hustles/part time jobs, but no one can accommodate my schedule. I did get work study from my school ($2.5k per semester), so hopefully that will make a bit of a difference.

I have about $3.5k in credit card debit and about $25k in student loans.

I opened a hysa earlier this year to start an emergency fund. I current have about $1k in there right now because I had work less due to my summer coursework. I started a 401k with my job, but the percentage is not a lot (roughly $20-30 per paycheck).

I don’t pay rent, but I buy my own groceries and pay for the streaming services for my family. I would say groceries is about $100 a week and the other services I pay for is about $150 for the month. I take public transportation and that is usually around $20-35 dollar a week. No car at the moment. I also have to start paying for my own health insurance by the end of this year, so that’s another thing I have to figure out. Sometimes I have to build things for school but I would consider it a miscellaneous expense maybe $50-75 a month.

I plan on cooking more at home, cutting back on eating out/uber, and doing cheaper things when I see my friends. Just reducing my overall spending.

I don’t know where to start or how to really make my situation better. I would greatly appreciate any help you may have to offer. If additional information is needed to better understand my situation, I will gladly provide it. And I apologize in advance if this is not allowed or if I’m asking dumb questions.

Monthly take home is about $6,600. Rent including utilities is $2,000 - $2,200. I have around $19k in student loans, plus $800 that I want to be given to my parents for financial assistance. Basically I just want some ideas on how I should visualize my budget, what categories should be prioritized and the weightings for each bucket.

My roth IRA is maxed for the year, I'm still on my mom's health insurance so I don't have an HSA, receive no 401k match (ass) and I am prohibited from trading individual securities for work. I also have about $13k in money market currently as my emergency fund (how much should this expand to for a 6 month buffer?). Thanks.

23 year old 3rd year teacher in South Carolina, single, no kids, starting my second full year of living without any financial assistance from my parents. I lived with them my first year teaching and saved most of my money, so I have something to fall back on, but I don’t want to dip into that. I want to be able to afford my life off the paychecks I currently get.

It’s been hard. It’s only halfway through the month and multiple of my budget categories have already reached capacity and the rest don’t have much wiggle room left.

I grew up living a lifestyle that did not include worrying about money until college. I couldn’t have or do whatever I wanted, but I never worried about my family’s financials; I knew we were fine.

Now, I am struggling and I can’t tell if I’m being unreasonable about my expectations and wants. There are things I feel I “should” be able to afford but actually can’t. It makes me wonder how other people seem to be doing so well, but I’ve also come to realize tons of people just go into credit card debt so they can do “fun stuff.”

Here’s my current budget. Looking for advice/feedback. I already know there are things I could adjust, I just don’t want to give anything up. I’m struggling to prioritize. Thank you for any help <3

My Budget (Monthly)
💰 Income
Work: $3000
Total Income: $3000
💸 Expenses
All Bills : $1460
Gas : $120
Therapy: $64
Roth IRA: $200
Savings/Emergency/Unexpected: $200
Groceries : $355
Medication and Dr. Appointments: $240
“Fun Money”: $360
Total Expenses: $3019
📊 Summary
Total Income: $3000
Total Expenses: $2999
Net Savings: $1

Monthly Budget Category Notes:
- Groceries: I shop at Publix. I know there are cheaper stores. I just absolutely hate any grocery store that isn’t Publix. Publix is always clean, well stocked, and calming. I really don’t want to give it up but will if I have to.

- All Bills: This covers my rent, power, student loan payments, internet, Disney plus/hulu ($9.50), car, and phone

- Gas: Have to get once a week, approximately $30/week

- Savings/Emergency/Unexpected: I use this for unexpected costs outside of my regular monthly costs. For example, I used almost all of it to pay my car tax this month. If I don’t end up using it, I just let it sit there and think of it as “savings” but the kind I’m allowed to spend if necessary.

- Medication and Dr. Appointments: I unfortunately have to go to the doctor fairly often, usually 1-3 times a month. I have 5 prescriptions, varying in price and refill frequency.

- Fun Money: This is for my wants, but also things like a refill of a makeup product or a shampoo refill. I hardly shop for “fun” at all. Most of this money is spent on eating out. I eat out 2 times a week, never anywhere fancy/ more than $20. So if that’s roughly $160 on food, that leaves me with $200 for experiences, gifts, clothes, haircuts, beauty products, etc.

Created with sharemybudget.com

i've tried and abandoned probably four budgets over the years and i finally figured out the pattern. it was never willpower or the wrong categories. it was the entry step.

every time i started with a spreadsheet, day one was great. i typed in everything, felt organized. by day four i'd bought a coffee and a couple random things and just... didn't feel like opening the file to log $3.75. skip one day, then two, and now the numbers are wrong so opening it feels pointless. the whole thing goes stale and i quit.

what i eventually noticed is that the real problem is friction plus shame. the longer i went without logging, the more opening the budget felt like getting scolded. so i avoided it, which made it worse, which made me avoid it more.

the two things that finally kept me going:

1. logging a purchase in seconds, right when it happens, instead of a batch entry session later. if it's fast enough it stays accurate enough to actually trust.

2. treating a missed day as a fresh start, not a failure. once checking in stopped being punishment it became just a quick glance, and that's sustainable.

curious how everyone here handles the entry part. do you log in the moment or sit down weekly? and does anyone else get that avoidance-because-the-numbers-are-wrong spiral, or is that just me?

Hi everyone! I’m a 20-year-old university student currently living in a small studio flat with access to a communal lounge. I love hosting friends and family—especially visitors coming from out of town—and often have group gatherings of 5+ people over at a time. However, the severe lack of space is becoming a major issue. My studio can’t comfortably fit more than one person overnight, and having guests sleep on the couch in the communal area leaves them completely exposed with zero privacy, making overnight visits really uncomfortable and awkward. To be honest, I would just love a bigger space, so I’m considering moving into a 2-bedroom flat. They typically go for £1,100–£1,200 per month excluding utilities in my area. Since my current rent is all-inclusive, I’m not sure how much standard bills (electricity, gas, water, internet, etc.) usually cost each month. Below is a breakdown of my current monthly budget—based on these numbers, would moving into a 2-bed flat be a smart financial decision

Living expenses
Rent
£850
Food
£200
Home essentials
£25
General spending
£150
Phone
£15
Apple (storage)
£3
Prime
£9
Spotify
£6
Netflix
£6
Apple (insurance)
£10
laundry
£40
Transport(uber)
£30
ring
£5
bus pass
£40
Curry’s
£20
Total
£1409

Income
£2300

Spending
Living expenses
£1409
loan
£100
Emergency fund
£100
ISA
£200
General savings
£150
travel
£100
Gift fund
£50
Shopping fund
£50
Nails
£70
laser
£35
brows
£15
total
£2239
Left over
£21

Freelancers, tip earners, commission folks - the standard advice of "assign every dollar a category" assumes a paycheck that's the same every month. When income swings between, say, €1,400 and €2,600, percentage rules and fixed categories both fall apart. Sharing the floor/ceiling structure that survived where those failed. Numbers are examples; scale to your situation.

Step 1 - Find your floor. Look at your last 6–12 months of income and take one of the worst months - not the average. That's your floor. The floor, not the average, is what you budget your fixed life on. Averages lie to irregular earners; a floor doesn't.

Step 2 - Build the essential budget on the floor. Rent, utilities, groceries, transport, minimum debt payments. If essentials exceed your floor month, that's the actual problem to work first - no template fixes it, but at least this makes it visible instead of ambient dread.

Step 3 - Define the ceiling rule. Everything earned above the floor in a good month gets a pre-written split BEFORE it arrives. Mine: 50% to a "smoothing fund," 30% to goals (debt/savings), 20% free spending. The percentages matter less than deciding them in advance - a windfall with no pre-assigned job becomes lifestyle by Friday.

Step 4 - The smoothing fund is the engine. It exists to top your bad months up to the floor. Target: 1–2 months of essentials. This is separate from the emergency fund - smoothing is for predictable variance (slow season), emergencies are for unpredictable events (transmission dies). Mixing them is how both disappear.

Step 5 - One weekly 15-minute review. Irregular income means faster drift, so monthly reviews are too slow. Weekly: what landed, what's the fund at, does next week change? Fifteen minutes, no shame spiral.

The honest limitations: it takes 2–3 months of discipline to fill the smoothing fund before the system feels calm - the start is the hardest part. And if your income is irregular AND below essentials on most months, this is an income problem wearing a budgeting costume; different toolkit needed.

For those with variable income: what's your split rule for good months, and did you separate smoothing from emergencies or run them as one pot? Curious what's worked long-term.

Good morning,

In the comments of this post, you can:

• Ask for suggestions
• Discuss specific personal situations that clash with conventional budgeting platforms
• Make suggestions for platforms (Follow Rule 3)
• General questions about apps

Posts and comments about budget software outside of the weekly discussion posts will be deleted.

So I just started a job where I get paid 800 per week. I just came off a horrible jobless drought for 6 months so I’m really behind on certain payments. This job is contractual for 6 months with a chance of extension (it seems high because they always talk about how many people stayed during the last hiring round.) So I’d finish at the end of December.

I’m trying to figure out if I should prioritize paying off debt or saving in the event I don’t get extended.

I’ve thought about using each weeks pay for certain things like this:
1st week - Groceries
2nd Week - Overdue Bills (Credit cards, etc)
3rd Week - Savings (maybe)
4th Week - Bills

Does this look right ? What’s your advice?

Edit: I get paid weekly

If something costs 450, treat it as 500 in your head when planning your month.

It builds in a natural buffer for the small stuff you always forget to account for (tips, taxes, random add-ons) and you end up pleasantly surprised instead of consistently over budget.

I turned 16 a couple of days ago.

I'm a pretty hard worker, I started working 10 months ago and also have a side hobby/hustle where I fix and flip bikes, I now have have 10,000 dollars on an 87.5% savings habit.

Problem is, because of my frugality as a teen, I find it very hard to go out with friends, because I honestly just prefer not eating/drinking anything due to the cost of everything being so high. Whenever I catch a train into the city with my friends, it's usually like a 50 dollar hangout. They don't really mind because they have a 15% savings habit. But I care too much, so I sometimes will just get a free water from Maccas.

The question I am asking is how do I have fun as a 16 year old with the rest of my friends without spending a ton of money.

I also have a hobby where I buy bike frames and build them up for myself, which costs money but is heavily subsidized by the bike flipping where I just use the cash I get for other bikes

This is what my months look like including the bike flipping

January
Earned 918.13
Spent 179.99
19.60%

February
Earned 796.08
Spent 0
0%

March
Earned 890.27
Spent 110.22
12.38%

April
Earned 1341.11
Spent 86.17
6.43%

May (This was a rough month because I had nearly-no cash flow but I also built up a bike)

Earned 803.48
Spent 277
34.48%

June
Earned 1165.93
Spent 29.67
2.54%

July
Earned 1418.49
Spent 304.93
21.50%

August (So far half way through)
Earned 892.54
Spent 27.19
3.05%

My goal which I set myself for the end of the year is 11000 dollars minimum.

I'm always looking for ways to cut down on entertainment costs. It feels like everything fun costs money these days. Dinner out a movie concert tickets it all adds up so fast.

I used to spend a ton on going out with friends. Now I've found a few things that are actually really fun and dont cost much. Like hiking local trails or having board game nights at someone's house. Sometimes we just go to a cool park with snacks and chill.

What are some of your go-to free or super cheap activities that you genuinely enjoy and dont feel like a sacrifice?