I’m a financial advisor who hates budgeting, but I’ve developed a system that helps me grow my money and live well
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Jala Eaton
- I have a money avoidant personality, so budgeting does not come easily to me.
- I’ve tried a few apps and strategies, but what’s really helped me is the Mint app.
- I also use a pen and paper (for backup) to spend and save in a way that makes sense to me.
Vanguard Personal Advisor Services
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I’d like to start off by saying I didn’t initially know I hated budgeting, But when I learned more about money mindsets, I found out I was money avoidant. Money mindsets drive how you think and act when it comes to money. For me, being avoidant means I don’t like to keep track of my money in the first place. I want to live in this magical world where I work and I’m always paid the correct amount, and when I spend money it is always there.
Being avoidant translates to ignoring financial statements, knowing it is payday and not checking my account, or never spending believing there is no money in the account. You can see why people who are money avoidant may have difficulty managing a budget.
Once I realized this was the case, I had to challenge and change these beliefs and habits. So I did. I started to budget, but on my terms.
I figured out a method that works for me
To be clear, my financial life is complex.
I am in the wealth-building phase, which means I am doing everything now to sacrifice and set myself up for success in the future. Translation, I usually feel poor (despite having a lot) so what is the best thing to do? Avoid! There’s the lovely money avoidant magical thinking.
The truth is I don’t live paycheck to paycheck. I have a fully-funded emergency fund and I invest, but still, when I look at my multiple budgets it is scary! Yes, I do mean multiple. I need personal budgets, business budgets, and a few others. There is so much going on and so much to keep track of.
But remember, living on a budget does not make you broke. In fact, it will keep you from going broke.
So what do I do?
No, I don’t give my problems to someone else to deal with. I allow a pen and paper, multiple spreadsheets, the Mint app, and a lot of notifications to help me with my spending plan. That’s right, I don’t even call what I do a budget.
A hybrid method is really what works for me. Budgets are not one-size-fits-all.
I tried many budgeting strategies before landing on my spending plan
When I initially decided to create my plan, I tried pen and paper. I wrote down everything I did with my money for a month. It was hard and overwhelming. Then I moved on to trying the Everydollar app. This was a good app, but it was very much like a digital version of the pen and paper method. Mostly because with my disdain for budgets comes even more disdain when someone asks me to pay a monthly fee to budget. No thank you.
After several other budging methods didn’t work for me, I landed on using Mint. Mint is free and does all the hard work for me. Syncing all the transactions, keeping track of my assets, bills, debt, net worth, and so much more.
The tradeoff for Mint being free is that there are ads everywhere. Personally, I know how to avoid credit card offers, so the ads don’t bother me much. I don’t even want to think of what they are doing with all my data. But I digress. It is nice to have a digital budget that I can access on my computer or my cell phone that sends me reminders to pay and notifies me when income has arrived.
Mint has become my budget accountability buddy. It tracks my spending and, ever so gently, with cell phone alerts and emails, lets me know I have gone over my budget at Target (for the 10th time). I am able to categorize my spending so that I have accurate reports at the end of the month. I can set savings goals, and even track those pesky student loans.
Now, I still keep a paper log of some financial items for backup purposes. But this hybrid method has been great to help this budget-hater get it together. I absolutely know and understand the necessity of budgeting and I love helping others with their budgets (go figure). However, that doesn’t mean you and I have to love managing our own budget. We just have to get it done.
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