Budgeting for Beginners Introduction slide

Creating a Plan for Your Money What is Budgeting? Creating a Plan for Your Money Discuss the definition of budgeting

Why is budgeting important? Know where your money goes Build towards a goal Become financially stable Ask the audience if they think budgeting is important or not. Ask about the reasons to budget, and reflect audience answers. “Good answers! These are a couple of our answers as to why budgeting is important.”

Why are people bad at budgeting? Can’t purchase everything they want Won’t accurately track Won’t review their spending Aren’t flexible Ask audience if anyone has tried and failed at making a budget. Ask for reasons on why people are bad at it, and then give our answers.

How do I start? PLAN TRACK REVIEW WITH THREE SIMPLE STEPS YOU ARE ABLE TO MANAGE YOUR MONEY WITH CONFIDENCE. PLAN Quick slide about 3 step budgeting Plan Track and Review TRACK REVIEW

Identify Your Expenses Plan Know Your Why Identify Your Income Plan how much you will spend on the different expenses in your life while keeping the total amount of expenses lower than your income. Identify Your Expenses

Tracking How Much Do You Spend? When Do You Spend? Where Do You Spend? Track where and when you spend any money. Tracking is incredibly important, but commonly overlooked. Every dollar counts. A lot of people don’t realize that spending a few bucks on coffee everyday adds up to a lot at the end of the month.

Tracking Methods Envelope System MINT Accountability Partner Envelope system – if you budget to only spend $80 on groceries, but $80 in cash in an envelope. Take the envelope with you and leave the debit and credit card behind so that you must stick to you budget. Mint – Useful app and website which helps you track Partner – Have someone make sure you stick to your budget. Maybe talk about some other methods to help save money. If you can afford to spend it, you can afford to save it: to help stop impulse buying, make yourself wait 2-3 days before buying something. If you still want it after 2-3 days it might be worth buying. If you do not want it anymore, and you could afford to spend that money originally, put it in a savings account. Make money less liquid. Put money in two different banking companies. One company for savings, one for spending. This way it takes time for money to transfer between the banks making it harder for you to impulse buy. MINT Accountability Partner

Review No Yes Were You Successful? Make Adjustments Continue Steps to take in reviewing. Review the money you have been tracking and see how it lines up with what you planned. Did you go over or under your budget? Ask yourself why and if you were in control of that reason. (Over spending on fancy clothes = control; Gas prices increasing more than you anticipated = not in control) Make Adjustments Continue

Repeat Plan Track Review Once you find a method of budgeting that works for you, keep using it! Just remember to review and make sure that it is still working. Review

Resources Mint.com CashCourse.org Investopedia.com DaveRamsey.com Different resources to go to learn more about finance, and budgeting.