I’ve written about using YNAB to do my budgeting on here before. And I’ve written about doing a fresh start in the app when I felt like things weren’t moving the way I was hoping they would be. It’s been a while since I did that fresh start and things were getting much better and I was feeling so much more confident about money. My credit card debt was going down, I was saving money for annual expenses so they weren’t as overwhelming, and I felt like I was finally getting on top of things.
Unfortunately, that feeling has left me lately. I’m at a point right now where I have less in my bank account after paying my rent for next month than I’m used to. I think it’s lower than it’s been since I started using YNAB and that’s not a good feeling. I was trying to tell myself that this could be that I’m getting paid weekly instead of twice a week so I didn’t have a big paycheck recently. And I’m still waiting on a check from one job. Also, one of my day jobs recently cut back my hours by 2/3rds. They are hoping to find some other work that I can do to make up some extra hours, but there is no guarantee that I could do that.
Because I’ve been budgeting for a while now, I’m on a bit of autopilot. That can be a good thing because I don’t have to think about adding transactions to the app anymore. I just do it automatically as I spend the money. But because I’m on autopilot, I don’t think I’ve adjusted to my new income level and I have been spending the way I was when I was still working more hours. It’s a difference of about $800 a month which is a significant amount. I am looking at ways to make up that money, but so far I haven’t found another job to add to my collection.
I could just start adjusting my budget in the app to start reflecting the amounts that I should be spending in each category. I know that I could be better about meal planning so I spend less on groceries and I don’t buy as many frozen or pre-made meals (which are more expensive than just buying ingredients). And I know that I need to go through my monthly recurring charges to find what I can either cut back or eliminate completely. I can’t keep living as if I was making the same as I was before because it will put me into a really horrible financial spot.
But even though I could just be adjusting my current budget, I’m looking at doing another fresh start now too. In some ways, it would be nice to have a clean break from how my spending was before to what my spending should be like now. But on the other hand, it would be good to learn the skills I should have to adjust my budget when necessary. Money fluctuations will probably always be a part of my life and I need to be better about planning when things aren’t stable. You can’t always start over so I should know how to adjust and be flexible.
As I’m writing this, I’m about to have my taxes done (when this goes up, it will be the day after my taxes are figured out). I think that once that is done and I know how much money I will have left from my savings for taxes (hopefully I will owe less than I saved!) I can make a more educated plan on what I want to do with my budget. It may be the perfect time to have a fresh start because then I will know what my money situation will be like with what I have to spend. It is a bit tough to budget when I have one bank account that I can’t really touch except for budgeting for my taxes, so I’m thinking about eliminating that bank account from my budgeting plan. I think maybe it was misleading because I felt like I had more money than I do.
I know that budgeting needs to be a big focus of mine right now. I need to get back on the track that I was on and I can’t just believe that somehow things will work out. That’s how I got into the financial situation that I’m in right now. I was trying to believe that everything would be ok and that I didn’t have to worry about it. I was wrong. I should have worried and I regret not worrying back then. But now I am so much smarter about how I need to be in control of my money and how I am spending it and hopefully I can fix this problem quickly before it takes away the hard work that I have been doing for a while.
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Going Back To An Old Habit (or Finding Control With Budgeting)
Budgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier)
A Fresh Budget (or Starting Over With YNAB)
Finding Ways To Treat Myself (or I Wish Money Wasn’t An Issue)
Working On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update)
Working on Budgeting (or Spending Money To Save Money)
