Painless Budgeting Tricks: The 30-Day Receipt Challenge (By: Jasmine York)

By: Jasmine York, contributing writer

If you’re the type of person who can’t seem to figure out exactly where all your money goes after each paycheck – or maybe you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck because you’re convinced you won’t have any money left over to build your savings – then this article is for you.

Below are two key strategies to help you track exactly where your money is going each month. Once you implement these strategies, you’ll physically see how much of your money you wear, eat, and blow each month and how much of that you can use to build your nest egg and gain a peace of mind. Keep reading for more on these two painless budgeting tips.

The 30-Day Receipt Challenge: Easily track exactly where your money is going by keeping all your receipts for the month and going through them to tally up how much you’re spending for food, clothes, entertainment, etc. By doing this, you’ll get a reality check on exactly how much of your money you’re eating up from spur-of-the-moment trips to fast food joints for example, and how much of that you could’ve saved by meal prepping or spending more on groceries. This technique also helps you do away with wishful guessing when setting a monthly budget and helps you more accurately pinpoint how much money you should be allotting to each category based on your spending personality.

The Zero-Based Budget: The same day you get paid (before you spend a single dollar) write down, right then and there, how each dollar will be spent. Pay yourself first by allotting a percentage to your savings account and consider how much you’re going to spend on bills, gas, food, etc. until you’ve zeroed out your entire paycheck. It helps when you cash out your check and use the envelope system with this method. You’ll know – and feel it more – once you’ve spent all the cash in one envelope that’s it for that particular category.

By combining both techniques together or even using one or the other, you’ll find that you have more money to spend than you realize and will be sure to gain more control of your finances… instead of letting your impulses or spending habits control you.