Can anyone else believe that it’s already 2020?!
If it’s been one of your goals for a looooong while to finally start budgeting, then this is your chance. This is YOUR year. 2020 is starting a new decade and it’s exciting to think of all the possibilities this new decade has in store for you.
I wanted to give you a full look of our 2020 budget binder so you can set yourself up for success not just this year, but the coming years.
IN THIS POST YOU’LL LEARN:
– Why we started budgeting and how it has helped us
– How to set up your 2020 Budget Planner and the exact sections and templates you need to have in your planner
– Where to get templates for your own budget planner
Our story: How a budget changes our lives
About 5 years ago my husband and I found ourselves scraping the barrel of our checking account, living paycheck to paycheck.
Looking back at how poor we were (and how terribly we handled the little money we did have) is crazy to think of. Just 5 short years, and everything can change. FOR THE BETTER!
I remember when we got our first couch, it was FREE. We were really just grateful to have a couch at all and were so excited that we found one for free.
We had gotten it from a family who was upgrading their living room, the couch was tan but you couldn’t even tell with all the stains. There were already rips starting and as we had it for the first 6 months they just got bigger and bigger.
To think that I used to HAND-SEW the rips with my little needle and thread so that we could keep sitting on it makes me laugh so hard.
While I write this, I’m sitting on a new sectional of my dreams that we paid $2,000 cash for.
I’m not telling you our pathetic couch turned dream sectional story to boast about what we have now. I’m telling it to you so you can understand the power of budgeting.
We didn’t get our dream sectional by happenstance. This didn’t happen to us because someone magically gave us $2,000 without working for it.
We still have jobs, we still have bills. And most importantly, we still have plenty of unplanned circumstances that come up forcing us to fork out money for a new rim that bent when we hit a pothole, paying extra in taxes, paying an extra $200 a month just for insurance.
Despite all the unexpected, unplanned expenses we still bought a brand-new $2,000 sectional.
This happened because we were INTENTIONAL with our budget every single month.
The power of being intentional with your money is life-changing.
Once you start planning where your money is going, instead of wondering where it went, you magically (not-so-magically) have more of it.
Having a budget doesn’t mean you’re giving up a life that you’re living. It’s creating a life that you LOVE. Creating a life that you’re happier, less-stressed with.
In 2020 you NEED a budget in your life. Whether you want to only take 30 minutes a month to budget, or 3 hours. As long as you do it, you’ll see a major shift in your financial (and personal, mental, spiritual … all of the above!) life.
How I set up my 2020 Budget Planner
Now that you’ve found out WHY you should budget we can get on to the good stuff. Exactly how I set up my budget planner for 2020.
First, I want you guys to be aware that my budget planner is always changing and adapting to what we need. And that’s exactly what your budget will do for you. I’m constantly adding in savings challenges, adjusting my sinking funds or updating my templates.
Budget Binder Section 1 –
The first section in my planner has my yearly bill tracker, savings trackers and debt payoff trackers.
These are things that I want to see when I first open up my planner. I feel like it’s important to have those few things at the beginning so you can see your progress.
YEARLY BILL TRACKER
The yearly bill tracker is exactly what it sounds like, it tracks your recurring bills each month for the entire year.
With this tracker you can see the exact dates each bill comes out and the amounts, then mark off as they’re paid.
How many times do you realize that you forgot to pay a bill? Now you have a late fee and they’re sending you a notice that your lights are about to be turned off. (Um, hello. Kind of need to see here?!) Bills are easy to forget about.
The first thing you want to do is set up all your bills on autopay. Then use the yearly bill tracker to mark off each payment after it comes out for the month.
(You should also have a calendar each month so you can see when each bill comes out in correlation to your paychecks. More on this in section 2.)
SAVINGS AND DEBT TRACKERS
I keep any savings and debt trackers in the first section of our budget planner. This is mainly to help give us motivation as we see the progress being made each time we open the planner.
If you have any savings challenges, debt payoff charts or sinking funds you’ll want it in this section for easy access.
One of the savings challenges I always have is a Christmas Savings Challenge. In August every year I start this savings challenge for Christmas so that I can be prepared for it ahead of time.
Budget Binder Section 2 –
This part of my budget planner is where all the monthly budget stuff lives.
BUDGET CALENDAR
Each month is set up the same and starts with a budget calendar. This budget calendar will help you keep track of your paychecks and bills (essentially a bill calendar).
Each month I write in the days that each bill will be coming out and the pay days for that month. Also, any important events that are important for our budget.
SPENDING PLAN
After the budget calendar will come the spending plan. Arguably the most important part of your budget planner!
This spending plan will be your guide for the entire month in helping you make decisions when spending your money.
If you haven’t created a spending plan yet, you can check out the beginners guide here.
INCOME AND EXPENSE TRACKER
Along with the spending plan you’ll need an income tracker and an expense tracker. I put those right behind the spending plan.
I typically track my income and expenses 2 times a month. Once, 2 weeks into the month and the second time at the end of the month.
(I don’t like to spend a lot of time on my budget each month, I can usually do it in 30 minutes or less every month.)
These monthly templates are continued for the entire year. If I need more income or expense logs I will add them as I go, but the monthly templates section doesn’t change from that.
Budget Binder Section 3 –
The third section in the planner is my meal planning.
The templates that I have here are:
– Dinner Ideas
– Weekly Meal Plan
– Grocery List
We’re big foodies and love eating out all the time. However, when we spent $700 just on eating out in one month we knew it had to change. We went on a meal planning fiasco to cut our food costs.
The first template that I use for meal planning is the dinner ideas template. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. A template for dinner ideas!
How many times do you go home at night and you and your spouse ask each other the same question, “What do you want for dinner?” Does anyone else find this extremely frustrating?!
I was done asking that question, because most of the time it ended up in us heading out the door and going to Cafe Rio for tacos. Now we head straight to the dinner ideas template to see our list of meal ideas that we’ve written down.
And I write down all my meals for the week on Saturday and go grocery shopping on Saturday or Sunday. Not only has this cut down our grocery trips but it’s also saved us $500 a month! (Okay, okay … we use to eat A LOT of tacos!)
Want a DONE FOR YOU budget planner? Get the exact templates I use with the Financial Success Planner.
Where to get the templates
The cool thing about having your very own budget binder is making it completely your own!
I’m always adding templates and new ideas to my budget binder and making it work for our family.
All of the templates that I use in my budget binder are all from my Financial Success Planner.
I kept trying to find simple, modern budgeting templates and eventually decided to make some of my own. I’ve shared those same exact templates that I made with my readers if you want a classic, sophisticated budget look.
You can find the Financial Success Planner here.
I also have a free basic budget download that you can find in the Freebies Page.
There are so many budget templates you can find online, the key is to find ones that you love and feel confident about.
After all, it’s your budget binder and you’re the one who’s going to have to use it every single month. You may as well make it something you enjoy!
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