[Music] well hey you guys if you're a regular around here then you know that I talk a lot about budgeting when it comes to Building Wealth because it's one of those essential steps that you really have to take to start that wealth building Journey but if you're newer to my channel then you may need a little bit of a handholding while you build your first budget because listen budgeting it can be really simple but it's also nice to have that step-by-step support when you are developing a new habit for the first time so that's what we're going to do today I'm going to share how to create your first budget in five simple steps and if you have been budgeting still stick around because I think it's so important to rehear some of this because you could have lost one or two steps in the process and also make sure that you subscribe so you don't miss any content coming in the future all right first I want to be very transparent with you there was a brief time that I did not like budgeting yeah budgeting was probably the hardest part of this whole financial Journey if you will for me to get on board with and actually see and enjoy it because I'm such a spender I'm such a free spirit and it always felt like this like lots of details it felt like oh my gosh you can't have any fun you can't go shopping you have to say no to everything the word budget almost became a cuss word and what I realized though when I was actually on a trip with Winston and he was like don't worry about the budget I can take care of everything on this trip you just enjoy that you would have thought would have given me such freedom but at that point we had been budgeting pretty consistently for a few years and the one time that I was told don't worry about it you can just fly and be free I actually found that it wasn't free it was actually more stressful not to have a budget so now I am a firm believer I love a budget because a budget really is permission to spend and when it comes to every dollar which is our budgeting app it makes it even easier so with every dollar it is so nice and convenient because your budget is right there on an app on your phone and when you make transactions you put them in or they're plugged into your bank account and they drop in there so you can actually see in real time what you have left the amount of money you have left to spend in each category and it helps you plan and it really does give you this road map to your money on a daily basis which is so key all right so when you get started budgeting for the first time one of your first steps that you're going to take is to list your income that is step one so I want you to think through any streams of income that are coming into your household and if you are married you and your spouse together are going to be doing this so if you're both working both incomes combined together go at the top of the budget if you have a part-time side hustle you know you're going to put that in if you have a part-time just job or maybe you work overtime put that in if you have alimony coming in or child support put that in like any amount of money again that you have coming in list that as income and you're going to add everything up and know here is the number you are working towards then step two is you're going to list all of your expenses you're going to start with your four walls which is going to be food Transportation shelter and utilities and so you're going to be able to mark down these are the most important things that you have to do first and then under that are going to be really essential things like insurance or Child Care uh you're going to be listing out other things that you spend money on throughout the month and so you can look in that could be subscriptions that could be clothes whatever it is you're going to put as a category now a couple of categories that you don't want to forget first and foremost is giving giving needs to be in your pant because this is part of your money that really has to deal with your heart and your character and so building that habit early regardless of where you are financially is so crucial and also do not forget the miscellaneous category because there are going to be things that happen throughout the month that you forgot to budget for and that's okay but it's just going to drop in that miscellaneous category it's one of my favorite categories stuff comes up and I'm like just drop it there drop it there all right number three is you're going to subtract your expenses from your income so again your income is going to be at the top minus all of those categories that we just talked about added together should equal zero that means every dollar coming in is assigned to a category so if you have money left over which is a great problem to have then take that even if it's you know $38 $200 whatever it is at the Top If you have not a allotted for that amount of money then drop it in a category you can even make your miscellaneous category bigger it doesn't matter but give it a name now if you're in the red and you're spending more on the expenses than you have coming in then you have to go and adjust and you have to say okay maybe we try to you know shave off a $100 of groceries this month and maybe we cancel these two subscriptions that we're not using right you go through all the categories and try to lower them so that you get that zerob based budget now when it comes to all of this together it is going to take maybe one two even three months to really get it right there's going to be tweaking you're going to do throughout the month and that's okay but after 90 days this is going to get easier and what you're going to see as well is that each month it's going to be different so you're going to have a different budget every single month because one month there may be a holiday that you put in a line item for that you know um it may be Summer and the kids have camp and you have to put a line item for that so every month is going to look different all right before I share steps four and five I want to tell you about one of our amazing sponsors Christian Healthcare Ministries when you go against what Society thinks is quote normal like avoiding debt for example it might seem weird at first and that is totally okay because we want you to do things weird if that means you're doing things intentionally including how you spend your Healthcare dollars and one way to be intentional is with Christian Healthcare Ministries chm isn't health insurance they're a health cost sharing Ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of health care costs without sacrificing their freedom programs start as low as $98 a month find out more and join at chministries.org budget that's chministries.org budget all right number four when it comes to your budgets is to track your transactions all month long I mentioned this that every dollar is such a great app because you either can put your transactions in manually or if you have every dollar premium it's going to connect to your bank so they will drop in automatically and then you go and track them and again it is so easy it's literally a drag and drop with your finger if you're doing it on your phone or even on a laptop and what's great about this is in real time you're able to keep up with these categories of what's going on and wday and I we we use this like we will look if it's the 29th of the month we're like okay we have a little bit more out to eat so maybe we can go and you know you know grab some food for dinner one night instead of cooking at home or or Godly the grocery budget it is we're getting close Okay so what can we do some cheap meals let's do spaghetti one meal and you know you really can plan around your life and what money you have left in the budget and this helps you stay on track as well because a budget may sound good in theory but when you actually practically do it you have to stick to the budget and so in order to do that you have to know what is in each category and so that's one reason tracking these transactions and keeping up with it is so helpful and it may seem like a lot of work at first but honestly when you get in the rhythm of it you can do it in just like under 15 seconds like it really can be very very fast to track those transactions but it keeps you in control which is what I love all right and number five is to make a budget for next month so we just kind of mentioned this earlier but I do want to stress how different every single month is and especially if you are on commission like I am every month from your income standpoint is going to be different and so you're going to have to adjust according to that and so it's really key to do your budget before the month begins so before the first of the next month make sure you already have things planned out and if you're using every dollar it's great because it will duplicate your budget from last month so you at least have a starting point you're not having to start from scratch but then go in and changed right so this month for instance I'll just be honest I'm not making as much as I did last month so I'm lowering my income you know Winston has his so we put his in so our giving because we give 10% of our income will change according to what we make every month um our savings is going to look different depending on what we're doing in life and then from there we're able to say okay what is left that we can put in these categories and so again looking at it every single month is key and while again it makes seem overwhelming it's really not once you get in the rhythm of this doing the new budget I mean it it may take you 10 minutes like it really doesn't have to be this long gated thing but it may be at first if this is your first budget you're going to have more time spent on this as you get used to it but these are things that really give you the control that you can have because there's a lot of things in our life right now you guys we can't control we're not we can't control interest rates we can't control the inflation we can't control grocery prices but we can control what we do with our income and that's why I love a budget is because it puts you in the driver's seat of your own life so again if you have not downloaded every dollar click the link below because this is going to be the tool that's going to help you get in control of your money again sign up for this you guys put it on your phone create an account because this is one of the keys of unlocking your wealth building journey and after you create your budget make sure to watch my episode on how to stop going over budget on groceries cuz groceries are essential and they are expensive all right remember to take control of your money and create a life you love
