I wanted to know if anyone else here is following a principle that my house practices. We set monthly goals instead of monthly budgets.
Instead of saying where every single dollar goes every month, we set a simple but challenging monthly goal that moves us toward our long-term goals.
For example, this month, we want to put an additional $5K towards our house. Simple in concept, yet challenging to achieve. We factor in our monthly bills, any expenses we need to allocate (we are going to fly to see the family for the holidays) and see if the goal can be obtained. Once this goal is in place, we aren't allowed to change it. We already have an emergency fund that takes care of emergencies, so nothing bleeds into our funds.
From that point forward, our goal keeps us in check for the rest of the month. If we buy this or that, we don't make our goal.
It also means that whatever money is left over isn't allocated or budgeted toward anything. We are free to spend it however we please, guilt free, and without the remorse of "not meeting a certain budget category".
Does anyone else do something like this? We've tried so many budgeting plans, philosophies, software and spreadsheets and none of them ever worked. Once we started setting monthly goals, we were able to achieve them so much more consistently without feeling stifled.
Submitted November 13, 2018 at 12:05PM by ryanstreet https://ift.tt/2qLFoj0
