Over the past 5 years we’ve purged about 70% of the possessions in our home. A simplified space has meant we have less to manage, less to take care of, and less to replace. But, more importantly, it’s meant we have more in so many other areas. Most importantly, we have more time to spend with our family and money to invest wisely and give generously. What we’ve noticed over the years is that budgeting our money intentionally has helped play a big roll in our simplified home.
Budgeting can seem like a scary word. But in reality, it’s just a plan for where our money will go. For must of us living in the United States or another progressed country, we have literally thousands of dollars pass through our fingers every single month. If we think about it like that, many of us wouldn’t want that much money to just disappear each month without a little bit of intentionality.
Are you new to the idea of a budget?! No worries! I’ve got you covered. You can learn all about how we budget using the 2020 Budget Binder here.
When we began budgeting every single dollar, we started living with much more intention. Our money had a plan. And if we deviated from that plan that meant that we would have to go back in and make adjustments. Some of the things we planned on would have to change. And since we try to base our budget off our priorities that made us want to stick to our budget even more!
But we also noticed even more changes happening around our home as we continued to budget intentionally. Our home became less cluttered because we had less “stuff” coming in. Weeding out the unnecessary in our budget only caused us to want to weed out the unnecessary in our home. We began removing more and more of the clutter in our home.
How Budgeting Simplified Our Home
Over time, I’ve noticed 5 ways budgeting has helped our family simplify our home.
1. Budgets give us boundaries.
While I love to say that budgets give us freedom to spend, they also give us boundaries within our spending. When we set a budget for each category, we can’t bring in as much as before. It’s helped us cut down on our consumeristic tendencies.
Over the years, we’ve gone from having tons of cash envelope and sinking fund categories, to just a few each. Simplifying the categories we have has made tracking a bit easier. Our family’s vice is going out to eat. If we had the funds, I’d go out one or two times each week! But honestly that’s just not something we want to dedicate that much of our budget to at this point in our lives. We have other things we want to focus on. So we’ve compromised and go out 1-2 times each month using our “Family Entertainment” cash envelope.
Are you thinking, “Cash envelopes? Sinking funds? What is she talking about?!” Head over to this post to learn all about how we use both of them in our budget!
2. Budgets help us focus on our priorities.
When we began budgeting, we realized that there was only so much money to go around. And if we wanted to make some {important to us} things happen, we had to prioritize. We base our budget on our priorities. Since we are in charge of where our money goes we can put the most important things at the top of the list! Whether that’s’s paying off debt, taking a vacation, saving for a new home, or any other number of things. It’s our money and we get to tell it what to do. And you do too!
A budget takes your life and helps you focus on what’s most important in the areas of your finances.
3. Budgets helps us use up what we have before buying more.
We’ve noticed over the years that we wasted a lot of money on consumable items. Things like food and toiletries can be drastically over-purchased, but under-consumed. And the reality is that it’s not all our fault. Yes, we brought it into our homes. But sometimes it’s just more than we can manage.
Everything that comes into our home is inventory that I have to manage. It’s stuff that I have to organize, maintain, and make sure gets used before it goes bad. And I’ve discovered that keeping more than I can easily manage is just too much. Things get lost in the back of the cupboards or fridge and money is lost because of it.
So instead, we choose to keep the inventory of things like food, toiletries, household cleaners, paper products, clothing, and kid’s art supplies in our home pretty low. It’s easier for me to maintain and it’s also easier on the budget. Less is wasted and we are forced to use up what we have before buying more.
4. Budgets help us focus on quality over quantity.
At first I thought I would try and stretch my dollar as far as it would go. In other words, buy as much as possible for as little as possible. But I quickly learned that strategy didn’t work so well. Cheap doesn’t always mean better. So we began to focus more in quality items over the quantity of items we purchased.
I really saw this most in my clothing. I realized 2 or 3 pairs of nice quality jeans would be better and last longer than 8 or 10 cheap pairs.
Now, just because something is cheaper in price doesn’t mean it’s necessarily lower quality. I have many items in my closet that were still very affordable. In fact, my go to places for clothing would probably all still be considered affordable. I just choose classic pieces that will last rather than items that are basically disposable. No more $5 T-shirts from Target for me!
5. Budgets help us learn to do without.
The mantra, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” became our new catch-phrase! Forcing ourselves to wait for things made us re-think whether we really wanted or needed the item at all. We find other ways to meet the need and we make do with what we have now more than ever.
Sure there are things we splurge on. But we make sure those items fit into our budget and are a big priority for us. We’ve learned the very vast difference between wants and needs. Going without doesn’t mean we are deprived. It means we are intentional.
Bonus…Budgets give us freedom!
Budgets give us freedom to say “YES” when something is important. And, even more importantly sometimes, freedom to say “NO” when something isn’t. Budgets force us to be intentional. They keep us on track with our spending and help us save, invest, and give more.
There is so much more freedom found in a budget than could ever be found without.
If you are struggling to setup a budget that works for you, your family, and your lifestyle, make sure to check out the 2020 Budget Binder. With over 200 printable worksheets, you will finally take control of your finances this year.
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