[00:02] living paycheck to paycheck, saving 0% of my income, to having a monthly as around 60%. Now, I know that's a high number, and I don't say that to brag, been able to do that is because I built out a super simple, but effective
[00:16] consistent with over the years. And this budgeting method has essentially allowed me to run myself like a business, and it's the core reason behind how I was do to both increase my earnings and decrease my spending. So, in this video,
[00:29] and how you can actually copy and steal this for yourself. And before you click work, I want to promise you guys two things if you stick around and watch video short and to the point because I know budgeting sounds boring, and that's
[00:42] myself. But, if you give me like 13 or 14 minutes of your time, I guarantee method a try, and you will increase your savings rate by doing it. Now, I'm not 60% of your income because I fully recognize there's some issues doing
[00:55] here. But, the goal of this video, again, is really just to help anyone savings rate in a way that's meaningful to you and your financial situation. And nothing to sell you here, but instead, I just want to give you guys access to the
[01:08] created and use myself. But, I do have to explain how this template actually ahead and just get right into the video here to show you what I'm talking about. numbers where you can see that I've got things split up into four sections. So,
[01:22] budget at the top, and our expenses budget below that on the bottom. And actual income at the top, and our actual expenses at the bottom. Now, the basic beginning of every month, you're going to start in that income budget section
[01:34] to enter in the different types of income that you think you're going to previous months. This can include things like money you're earning from if you're budgeting with someone else, income from side hustles, and even
[01:47] if you want to see the exact savings account I use, then I'll go ahead and out. So, right here, I typed in some sample income sources like four total working couple might expect along with a few other things. And you can see this
[02:01] spreadsheet added all this up to get a total of $9,555. this video, I also want to mention that you can customize the spreadsheet if you need to by just adding some rows or playing around with formulas inside of
[02:13] any cell if you need to edit a formula. And I really recommend importing the can because I really just like how they actually explain how all these different stuff and you need an explanation. All right. Now, after you've typed in your
[02:26] section at the beginning of the month, next you want to go ahead and move down then just try to do your best in estimating what categories you're going I've found works best after years of doing this is to split up these
[02:38] expenses. So, fixed expenses are month to month like housing with your rent or mortgage, subscriptions, your like that. And I like to include insurance premiums in the section as
[02:51] pay for my car insurance up front for 6 months at a time. For something like car I just divide that by the 6 months this premium's for to get a monthly amount car insurance cost each month. Now, this expense is actually down for me recently
[03:05] for new car insurance to make sure I'm not overpaying. So, if you want a quick right here within the spreadsheet to the exact tool that I used to compare car save some money as well. And I'll also go ahead and leave that link down below
[03:18] to check that out after watching the rest of this video. Under that though, we've got variable expenses for things like groceries, miscellaneous stuff, that can go up or down depending on the month. And by the way, these are pretty
[03:30] close to the exact categories that I like to use when I'm budgeting, but want to. Now, like I said, these are sample numbers, but at the bottom here, add up the combined fixed and variable expenses and tell us that our total
[03:43] estimated budget for spending is going to be $5,970. calculates that based on our income estimates and our expense estimates, we're going to be saving $3,585 as profit this month. Again, I like to
[03:56] I like using the word profit here. And as a profit margin or savings rate, that which is honestly really good. However, this is the part of the video where I've budgeting that almost everyone runs into when they get started with doing this.
[04:10] And that is that almost everyone greatly underestimates how much they're spending they're greatly overestimating how much they're saving or how much profit they Figuring out how much you're going to earn can be much easier because income
[04:22] tends to be a bit more consistent than expenses, especially if you have a fixed job. So, that's where the other half of the spreadsheet and my strategy around going to do over here on the right side of this budget is that as the month goes
[04:35] type in our actual income as paychecks and other deposits hit our bank account. type in our actual expenses as we pay for things with our credit cards, debit cards, cash, or bank transfers. As we do that, this column over here on the left
[04:48] transactions tag in the different categories from our actual expenses. And the cell for that category is going to stay green. But, if we do go over red to tell us that we've overspent on let's say groceries or dining that
[05:01] that's going to help give you a high-level visual on exactly where feedback is what's going to be crucial in helping you decide A, if you have a problem is coming from within your budget, or C, if you just have an income
[05:14] under control, but you're just not making enough money. Honestly, for many above there because that was the case with me. So, what I did about that is well. And that is to use this budgeting template for 3 months. But, for those 3
[05:28] changes to your life and to your spending habits. What you want to do is financial baseline because one of the hardest things about budgeting is that be good at it. And being consistent with budgeting can be really challenging. So,
[05:43] also trying to cut back on your spending and also increase your income at the all these things rather than just be successful at one of them. So, we want budgeting for 3 months first, and then we can go ahead and start to address any
[05:57] budgeting template right here is going to be the perfect tool for building that enter in your expenses, what you want to do is first to go to your bank account payment methods you're using the most, and then you want to type in the name of
[06:09] in groceries because that's a pretty common one. And then next to that, I the vendor as well, which we'll say was Trader Joe's for this example. For the cell here has a drop-down list that's
[06:22] over on the left of the spreadsheet under the expenses budget section. So, in groceries and then just hit the tab key or select that from the drop-down. And then we'll say that I spent $100 on this grocery store trip over to Trader
[06:34] Joe's. Immediately, you'll see this $100 amount automatically populates over here on the left, so that way I can compare all my grocery spend against the $800 right of the screen, I like to track a few other things as well with every
[06:46] method. Now, because I'm a big credit card guy and I like to maximize the dollar I spend, I went ahead and created a drop-down list over here as well with credit cards. And this drop-down list is coming from the card names I have over
[07:00] bottom of the screen. So, in case you ever want to change the names here, you that. You can also type in Venmo, cash, or bank transfer if you're not paying grocery expense, I would use my Amex Gold to earn 4x points per dollar, which
[07:13] multiplier column as well. There's some other cells that calculate the points points, and the baseline return on spend as well. But honestly, that's all just like me. So, what we really care about here obviously are just the numbers all
[07:27] that really tell us how close we are to being on budget. Now, to show you what something, let's say that I only have a $350 travel budget this month, but maybe cost $400. So, if I type that in under the actual expenses section, we'll say
[07:42] from Delta that we're going to put in the travel category. And again, we'll say that was for a total of $400. Now, you'll see though that the cell under the column to the left turned red because we budgeted for $350 of travel
[07:54] again, step one here with this budgeting method is to download the budgeting to down below in the description. And then you want to manually track your really just how much you're actually spending on different things. Now, I
[08:07] expenses can feel very time- consuming and even kind of inefficient when automatically track these things for you as well. But, the idea here is that manually budgeting like this, it just kind of forces you to actively relive
[08:19] opposed to just passively kind of keeping tabs on your spending. And I think doing that is a very powerful thing. You could still use and actually apps like Rocket Money for example that allow you to link your bank accounts and
[08:32] single place to actually just save you time and kind of help you in a good way. least every other week, I want you to track your income and track your that, now you're going to have a much more accurate baseline of where your
[08:45] budgeting is going to feel much more like a habit as well. And then, what you expenses budget to more accurately reflect how much you're actually idea. From there, you want to start cutting out any waste from your budget
[08:58] with minimal effort by just cutting out any junk you might find in your spending And then after that, if you still need to increase your savings even more, at cutting back on the larger expenses that might have a more meaningful impact.
[09:12] payments that are too high, a rent or a mortgage that's more than you can that can save you significant money each month. But, just be aware that the of expenses is that they can sometimes require you to change your lifestyle,
[09:25] for most people. Now, even though trading in your car for a cheaper one, different area is not always ideal, if it's able to help you increase your you just have to consider the trade-offs. After that though, the key
[09:37] thing to remember about budgeting is that you can only decrease your expenses doing that, and there's always going to be a cost of living, so your expenses increasing your income is unlimited, and so I know this sounds obvious, and
[09:50] after you've budgeted consistently and you're aware of where you're spending expenses to be as low as possible while still being comfortable enough for you, income is the only thing that's going to increase your savings rate. That's
[10:03] started this YouTube channel as I was making somewhere between 60 to 70,000 moved in with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife. Our expenses were one-bedroom apartment, and we didn't spend that much at all. And we got our
[10:17] savings rate to be pretty good at around 20 to 30% of our income. But, one of the channel was because I saw that content creation was a very real side hustle extra few hundred dollars per month for me. So, because I couldn't really
[10:30] because I worked a job with a salary that I couldn't get promoted at very soon, I just went ahead and shifted my focus from spending less to earning more that sounds like I'm oversimplifying things by saying to just earn more to
[10:42] really does come down to that. And I also know that my situation was probably way easier than most because I had no kids, no mortgage, and very little debt. budgeting template just helps anyone that's watching this to become more
[10:54] Maybe you can decrease your spending, or maybe you just have to actually switch something like that. And again, I'm not saying that it's going to be easy, but easy is a relative term, so my easy is not the same as your easy, and your easy
[11:07] is not the same as someone else's easy. So, if you take away anything from this situation to anyone else's, but instead just concentrate on your own path and like this budgeting template to get a better understanding of what your next
[11:20] people give up on budgeting, or they just shy away from it because they look at going from $0 per month to $2,000 per month, and they see that as impossible. But, in reality, the goal is not to make that jump all at once, it's to go from
[11:33] saving $0 to $50 and then $50 to $100 and so on. So, like I said, promise short and to the point, which is what we just did. And promise number two is that budgeting template from this video was going to be available to download
[11:46] absolutely for free. So, make sure to go ahead and download that with the link that link, we're going to send you an email copy of the spreadsheet that I a budget for each month out of the year, which you can then just copy again for
[11:58] send you a free copy of my net worth tracker, which is cool because you can of just track your wealth as it grows over time. Personally, my wife and I like to sit down and update our budget every single weekend and then we update
[12:11] And honestly, I'm so glad we started doing those two things years ago because look back and see where our finances were in the past compared to where they increasing your savings rate, you want to make sure your savings are actually
[12:24] yield savings account while you figure out what you want to do with it next. best savings accounts out there right now that I recommend, then make sure to here on the screen next. But as always, thanks so much for watching and I'll see
[12:36] thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.