What about irregular expenses? That's where You Need a Budget‘s second principle comes in. If you've never done something so proactive with your money, you'll quickly see how it changes your perspective on each dollar you hold.” Rule Two: Embrace Your True Expenses You're literally writing a to-do list for your money. “Before you can start bossing your dollars around…you have to decide what needs to get done. Next, you want it to help you enjoy life. “Take time to think about what makes you happy,” Mecham writes, “and add those things to your budget.”Īgain, you're trying to answer the fundamental question: “What do I want my money to do for me?” First, you want it to cover survival basics. Want to upgrade your car? Upgrade your car. Want to travel? Use your money for travel. After you've set aside money for your needs, you can do whatever you want with the money that's left. Now you have to “prioritize your priorities”. Once your essentials are covered, the hard work begins. Begin be listing all of the places your money needs to go - your obligations, the expenses that cannot be ignored.įor most folks, these top priorities will include housing, utilities, transportation, and health care - survival stuff. Ask yourself this fundamental question: “ What do I want my money to do for me?“īefore you can give every dollar a job, though, you have to know which “jobs” need doing. The first step to building a better budget, Mecham says, is to give every dollar a job. Not a big deal, but I thought you should know. While these videos contain great supporting material, they use slightly different terminology from the book. ![]() Note: Throughout this review, I've embedded videos from the YNAB YouTube channel. Let's take a quick look at the YNAB method. In his recent book - also called You Need a Budget, naturally - Mecham shares the method that has helped him (and thousands of others) overcome financial anxiety. Today, You Need a Budget is one of the most highly-regarded personal finance apps available. In time, that spreadsheet morphed into a piece of software called You Need a Budget. He started teaching others these rules and sharing his spreadsheet. Later, while brainstorming ways to earn extra money, Jesse wondered if other people would be interested in his budgeting method, which involved four simple rules. They paid their bills and still had a little left over for a couple of date nights each month. Despite their meager circumstances, they no longer felt desperate about money. The couple steadfastly stuck to their budget, and something surprising happened. Plus, they were planning for their fist child.īut because Jesse was (and still is) a self-proclaimed “numbers nerd”, he decided to create a spreadsheet to budget for every day of the year. ![]() ![]() He was pursuing a master's degree in accounting, while she was finishing a bachelor's degree in social work. They lived in the 300-square-foot basement of a sixty-year-old home. In 2004, Jesse and Julie Mecham were twenty-year-old newlyweds trying to make ends meet. In a nutshell: By diligently applying four simple rules, you can move from being at the mercy of money to being a master of money.
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