Did you ever start budgeting, just to end up too overwhelmed and then quit? Don’t feel bad if this is you, it’s so common! But that doesn’t have to be your story.
When my husband and I were first married, we found ourselves quickly buried in debt. Budgeting helped us to get out of over 120K in debt. But it took a lot of trial and error. I’m hoping that some of you will be able to learn from the missteps we made at the beginning.
If you are thinking about getting started with budgeting or if you’ve started before and quit, I want you to be successful from the start this time! Check out the top reasons people quit budgeting just after they start. You’ll be able to see the challenges and face them head on.
Here are the top 3 reasons people start budgeting but then end up quitting:
You just don’t know where to start.
You’ve heard all of these ways that other people are successfully budgeting, like cash envelopes, zero based budgeting, apps, and spreadsheets. You’re hearing it all but it’s overwhelming and it’s making you freak out. You just can’t figure out where to start.
There’s a lot of information out there to sift through and it absolutely is overwhelming. It’s hard to know what is the right system for you and your family. Because of the information overload, many people try and quit, or worse yet, they don’t even start.
You don’t have a solid foundation set up.
Many people who have the best intentions and really want to have a solid successful budget just don’t have the foundation in place to get started and stick to it. Before you even start budgeting, you need to get into the right mindset. Ask yourself why you want to budget. To be successful, you really have to know that piece. If you don’t have a clearly defined “why” your budget will continue to be low priority.
You start with a tool, process, or system that doesn’t work for you.
So many families start budgeting but they get started using the wrong tool, process, or system for their family or household. Obviously there are tons of different ways you can budget successfully but not every way is going to work for every family.
Before starting, it’s important to really consider the different options and what will work best for how your family operates. Make the best choice for your family, but also remain flexible and open minded. That way, if the system you chose to start with doesn’t work out for you, you can seamlessly move to a better fitting system.
What’s worked for my family:
The system that my husband and I have used to manage our household finances since 2013, when we got ourselves out of debt (and kept ourselves out of debt for all these years), is a system called YNAB. YNAB stands for You Need A Budget and it’s personal budgeting software available for Windows, Mac, and iOS.
YNAB is a system but it has helped us to create a routine and process for us and our household that works really very well. I would LOVE to show you how to use it as well.
If you are overwhelmed and you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get your household finances on track with a plan, we should chat.