Tips like these helped us pay off $127K in debt. You can read our story in Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After.
Welcome to 31 Debt Free Missions! A new feature this year on Queen of Free, during each day in January, I will provide 31 concrete missions or challenges for you to take on to #SlayDebt and take charge of your finances this year. Each mission will take you less than an hour (some will only require 15 minutes). Whereas, 31 Days to Kick Debt in the Teeth (which I’m reworking this year and reposting in January, too) focused on some of the philosophical changes you need to make in order to be successful with money, 31 Debt Free Missions are action steps to put into place after you have your thinking straight. Even better, during the month of January, I’m revisiting each of these challenges in order to sharpen my money saving and debt slaying skills.
Are you ready? Your mission is as follows:
Day 18: (Re)Build Your Budget
Oh the budget. It’s a dreaded “b” word for so many of us. But today I want you to lay aside any pre-conceived notions you might have about budgeting. If you thought you were going to be limited by your budget, you were wrong. If you thought that a budget was a killjoy, derived as an ancient torture device, again dead wrong. Finally if you were misinformed that budgets were limits placed upon your ability to enjoy life, eeeerrrrrrnnnttt WRONG-O.
Budgets are your sturdiest weapon in the pursuit of paying off debt. In fact, I’m such a firm believer in this fact that I devoted an entire chapter in Slaying the Debt Dragon to budgeting. While I can’t sum it all up in a blog post, I do want to give you some of the tidbits that I picked up during our journey to knock out $127K.
Change Your Lens
If you believe any of the mistruths about budgeting from the first paragraph of the mission, then you’ll probably have little success. You need to change how you see the process of building a budget. Can I tell you what helps me? It’s a simple word swap. Instead of budget I say forecast. Because after all that’s what the process truly is – forecasting what money will come and go out during a set period of time. There might be more or less income or more or fewer expenses; however, you can predict your money flow based on what you’ve made and purchased in the past.
Say it with me, “FORECAST.” Ahhhhh doesn’t that sound much better?
Zero-Base It
Your debt free mission is to build a Zero-based budget. It’s a concept we picked up from Dave Ramsey but honestly has been around for quite some time (nothing new under the sun, you know?). It’s a simple concept but ideally you want to give every dollar a marching order so that it doesn’t hang out in your checking account.
I’m found of saying, “If you leave any extra cash in your checking account at all, it will grow legs and walk to Target.” Spare your pennies, send them away. If you remove all of the money – even if you’re sending it to an envelope or a savings account, you’ll be less likely to overspend.
Now, I know some of you are fuh-reaking out right now because what would happen if you were overdrawn? Well A) Pay attention so that you don’t do that. and B) It’s ok to leave a cushion of $50-100 in there. Just don’t be surprised when you spend it and you have no idea where it went.
How Often Should I Budget?
You should begin with at least a month. I’m most comfortable budgeting (um, forecasting) for about six months at a time. This helps me keep an eye out for expenses that aren’t paid on a monthly basis. This I learned, unfortunately, the most difficult way when existing on a month-to-month system in the past.
Budgeting is so fluid. Your expenses will change and so will your life needs. So setting something in stone isn’t the best idea. However, you can’t simply go with the flow either. Have a working framework that you can hold with an open hand, making changes when necessary.
What Budgeting Tools Should I Use?
I’m so glad you asked that question. The answer is as varied as the stars. As for me, I’m a Quicken sort of girl because I lurve my laptop and being able to look at graphs and charts of our spending. As I mentioned, I set up our income and expenses for about six months at a time and then reconcile things on a daily basis.
If you’ve never ever set up a budget before, you should check out the FREE printable budget form that I created (I have a Queen of Free one and a Slaying the Debt Dragon one, too – same forms, different design). This will simply help you think through every category of spending possible.
You could use a piece of software or even an online service or app. 4 Fantastic Budgeting Apps is a post with some ideas of other tools for you to consider.
Your budget is your best debt slaying companion, helping you defeat your foe and laying out a specific battle plan. Begin creating (or re-creating) one today.
Now that you’ve received your mission, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Also, if you want to be sure you don’t miss a single update in this series, go ahead and subscribe! Updates will come to your inbox everyday at 5 PM.
Miss the other missions?
Read:
- 31 Debt Free Missions: The Restaurant Challenge
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Adjust Your Withholdings
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Quit Using Credit
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Go to the Library
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Cutting Cable
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Ditch Your Memberships
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Reorganize Your Pantry
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Make 3 Phone Calls
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Bank Field Trip
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Make Your Laundry Detergent
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Unsubscribe Now
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Stop Your Money Leaks
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Regular Car Maintenance
- 31 Debt Free Missions: The Prescription Switch & Save
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Kill the Fees
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Change Your Car Insurance
- 31 Debt Free Missions: Organize the Game Closet
My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out Inspiration to Pay Off Debt: 30 Days of Encouragement from the Queen of Free
This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal or maybe even something for free, you also help our family pay off our mortgage early. And for that, we royally thank you!
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