A budget is the number one tool for financial wellness, tells you what should be happening with your money. Here some tips on how this plan could be successful and realistic.

Tips for a sustainable budget
Your budget is your number one tool for financial wellness . The reason for that is that a budget tells you what should be happening with your money. That’s some powerful information! When you know what should be happening, you can make sure it happens!
But there are some tips on how this plan could be successful and realistic.

Tip #1: Have a game plan for extra income.When setting up your budget, you’ll want to factor in your consistent income: the money you know for sure will be coming in.

If you try to budget using inconsistent income, you may end up feeling defeated if and when things don’t go as planned, but in this case also you need a budget because your income maybe is irregular but most of your expenses are fixed and if you do not have a plan for them you will be stressed out.
Equally important, however, is having a plan in place for any extra income that does show up throughout the month.

This will ensure you’re not carelessly spending that extra money!
Ideally, your consistent income will cover all of your required bills and spending.

Any extra money can be saved towards your goals, put towards debt payoff, or allocated for things you enjoy.

Tip #2: Include some fun spending! Now, I’m not saying to go wild with unnecessary spending, but you do want to make sure you are enjoying life. If you want your budget to be sustainable over the long term, you can’t feel deprived month after month. To avoid feeling like you can’t enjoy yourself, factor in a reasonable amount of money for guilt-free fun every month.
The issue here is to make sure your priorities are covered and that you’re making progress towards your goals.

Tip#3: Have a plan for unexpected or one-off expenses.
So we are embracing those true expenses, it’s wise to be able to look ahead to those larger, less frequent expenses that surprise you and break them up into monthly amounts and start saving up for the car repair, the appliance repair, or the vacation, kids’ summer camp or whatever it may be, not always just bad things. That’s how we slowly get into the credit card debt. Because we don’t save for these unexpected things.
There are two ways to do this. First, you can have a savings account dedicated to emergencies or unexpected expenses. Or, you can include a category in your budget (I like to use “Miscellaneous”) that acts as a catch-all for expenses you didn’t plan on.
You don’t want an unexpected expense to pop up and throw your budget out of whack!

Tip#4: Don’t forget about the variable spending areas
The final rule to follow when setting up your budget is to make sure you’re including variable spending. Variable expenses are things that don’t have a set amount or due date each month, but are still necessary expenses.
The areas of the most variable spending are groceries, gas, fun spending, and dining out. These expenses vary from month to month.
If you’re not sure how much to allocate to these areas, start by looking at what you normally spend on them—I recommend looking at the last 3 months of expenses to get an average cost.
Get comfortable knowing that your budget will ebb and flow over time. What you spend on groceries this month might drastically change next month—and that’s perfectly fine.
What about you, momma ? What is the most challenging part of writing your budget?

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