May budget with me | 2024 YNAB

⚡LINKS & THINGS⚡:

Intro: 0:00
Breaking the rules of YNAB: 0:34
Why you should give every dollar a job: 1:48
Why not giving every dollar a job helped me: 2:25
What to keep in mind when breaking the rules: 3:48
Budget with Me: 6:02
Closing Thoughts: 15:45

✿ Intro: ✿
In May I have three big events that will be dominating the headlines of my life.
1) CeCe gets her Dental Surgery
2) We go to Colorado for a week and
3) I have a surgery for what shall not be named, thanks YouTube!

How will these impact my budget? Am I breaking the rules of YNAB? Let's get into it!

✿ Briefly, how did April go? ✿
In my April budget with me, I broke a cardinal rule of YNAB: I did not give every dollar a job. After I covered my fixed bills and expenses, I decided to do an experiment: the rest of the money I would leave in ready to assign. As I made my purchases that fell outside of my fixed expenses, I covered that spending from either an already established sinking fund or by using my ready to assign money.

✿ Did it work? ✿
Overall I think it went great. If you want to see my April in depth budget recap, subscribe and stick around, but what I found over this past month is I did not feel as stressed about my finances. It ironically made me spend MORE intentionally because I kept asking myself - do I really want to spend down this big pot of money? It turned into a little game for me which I have found in the past to be helpful with my finances. I also felt less stressed because I did not spend a ton of time analyzing my budget and moving money around to cover inevitable overspending.

✿ Should you try it? ✿
Now before you try this, you should keep a few things in my mind. I think the reason why this worked so well for me is:
--- I made sure to assign money to cover all of my fixed monthly expenses, like rent and my student loan payment
--- I also made sure to cover my minimum savings and investing goals such as my emergency fund and Roth IRA.
--- My sinking funds like auto and medical are decently well funded, so I knew that I would be fine to skip a month. Having money in sinking funds also allowed me flexibility to cover expenses from those categories rather than cash flowing them.
--- This may not be a problem for you, but you should also make sure you are recording your expenses and updating your budget daily under this method. This will allow you to be more cognizant of how much you have remaining for the month to spend. I found doing this allowed me to course-correct my spending and adjust accordingly as I went throughout the month.

✿ So what is the plan for this month? ✿
Since I am happy with how April went for me, I am sticking with the same plan for at least the month of May then we will re-evaluate for June.

✿ May Budget with Me ✿
I use the software YNAB (or You Need a Budget) - check it out in the link above.

I have re-organized my categories to reflect my current budgeting method.
Step 1: cover my fixed expenses
Step 2: then cover any long term savings goals or sinking funds I want to set money aside for.
Step 3: gotta make sure we invest!
Step 4: everything else

A little about me:
My name is Avery, I'm 25 years old and I live in the midwest (USA). I live with my boyfriend with no children and a seven-month-old shih tzu. I make a gross salary of $52k a year and have $19k in student loan debt. My channel is all about my financial freedom journey, going from a low-income childhood to a (hopefully) financially prosperous adulthood.

tags:
#budgetwithme #ynab #youneedabudget #personalfinance budget with me, may budget with me, 2024 personal finacne

[rockingbottombudgets]

Ah, I'm so happy to find someone else who benefits from leaving money unassigned! I found that putting 'spare' money into a category I could spend mindlessly from only encouraged mindless spending; it was like a target. Instead, the green box and the figure at the top is like a comfort blanket!

[KatieoftheHouse]

I love that you tried something new and “broke the rules.” Sometimes that is necessary to get out of a rut in 😊
Yes to investing as much as possible as early as possible! Solid plan🙌🏼

[TheGoodMidlifeCrisis]

Rules are good to give us guidelines but, ultimately, it's your budget and it needs to work for you, I'm so glad this has worked for you and gotten you feeling good about budgeting again!! 😊

[christinemitchell]

Good luck with your surgery!! May is a big month for me too and I'm having a total hip replacement on May 1st. Budgeting for such a big expense has been tricky but super glad for YNAB for helping me keep my ducks in a row. You will do well with everything 💕

[angeljuarez]

Omg I love this!! 😊 Definitely can’t wait to see how April went for you. Love the new setup. I was just thinking today the same, I want to arrange my categories in order of importance and try to minimize them. Hoping all goes well for the month of May for you & Cece! Enjoy your trip to Colorado 😊 See you soon!

[minimalmiss]

Colorado is on my list to visit, a possible state to move to decades down the line. Hope its a fun trip

[YazWhyNY]

Oooh I love how you made it work for YOU. Sometimes I feel similar re transactions just happening and feeling a bit disconnected.

[AverysMoneyMoves]

Thanks for watching! Sorry for the background noise in this video, I am not sure what happened 😞 will make sure to fix that before I begin filming next time!

Chapters --
Intro: 0:00
Breaking the rules of YNAB: 0:34
Why you should give every dollar a job: 1:48
Why not giving every dollar a job helped me: 2:25
What to keep in mind when breaking the rules: 3:48
Budget with Me: 6:02
Closing Thoughts: 15:45

[KatieoftheHouse]

I love that you tried something new and “broke the rules.” Sometimes that is necessary to get out of a rut 😊
Yes to investing as much as possible as early as possible! Solid plan 🙌🏼