Is Budgeting Really That Hard?

so the number of people that walk into here and do their debt-free screen that started doing their budget in January is amazing they started Financial Peace University in January it's amazing they started reading the Total Money Makeover listen to audio book in January it's amazing because a lot of people want to do stuff to change their life in January the OL New Year's resolution that works no question about it and you know the the way you actually accomplish something if you want to go somewhere in the old days we would get out a map now some of you don't even know what a map is but you would get out your phone right and you would enter in the address and click Google Maps or whatever and it's going to give you directions right there on your phone and you go straight you know off the GPS right in there right you have a step-by-step process to get where you're going and if you get off track it talks to you and says you're off track right well that's what your budget does and I figured out a long time ago of course years ago we did the budget with the paper and in the back of all the books or blank forms that you can make copies of if you want to do a paper budget in the back of the Total Money Makeover or most of my other books it's in there as well and so the budget is a pretty simple idea here's a couple things your budget is you telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went well I don't want to do a budget it's restricting not unless you make it restricting it's your budget all a budget is is you're doing it on paper on purpose before the month begins every dollar has an assignment every dollar has a mission every dollar has a name before the month begins in a unique budget each and every month because every months a little different some things are the same but something some things are different every month and you agree on it with your spouse so if you put take out the dollars that you have coming in this month your take-home pay and you put it at the top of the page and you and your spouse sit and look at that and you say all right let's spend that on paper before the month begins we buy food we buy lights and water we pay the rent or the mortgage we pay the car payment if there is one we pay the insurance we put clothes on the kids we whatever it is we have to do with it we have to buy this month and most people don't buy clothes every month by the way but you know you go right down the list and every dollar has an assignment and then you squeeze dollars out of that budget you start working those baby steps that save the thousand dollars baby step one two is you start working your way out of debt and so on down the line right so every dollar has an assignment that's called a zero based budget you make a list of your income you hold it up before the month begins you make a list of your expenses and you spin those expenses on paper and then once that's on paper you stick to it now the reason the budget is not restricting the reason it should be just called a spending plan is because it's a plan for how you're going to spend your money and you're in charge I'm not in charge no one's gonna the budget police aren't going to come in and look over your shoulder you're in charge but what it forces you to do is be a grown-up instead of an impulse brat if folks if it forces you to tell your money what to do instead of wondering where it went it forces you to live on purpose it tells you when you're out of bounds you just made a wrong turn turn around take a left here take a left here go back up to the highway you got off the highway you're gonna miss your you turned off too soon you're not gonna make it just like your GPS would do it's the exact same thing only it's not an audio me yelling how to do that I don't make them put that in every dollar album I yell at you if you overspend a category that'd be funny or I could just say in a stern voice turn around don't do that you know that would be no that's just that's just spooky weird but anyway so the budget is the key though you hear people say this all the time with that free scream what's the key communication what's the key being on a budget what's the key the extra work what those are the types of things you hear on every debt free scream just about every one of them now a couple things you need to know about your budget I don't know what you're gonna budget for food for the first month that you do your budgeting but you're wrong people always spend more on food than they think they do so whatever you think you're going to put in there for the food category put some more in there because you're wrong you're gonna spend more than you think you're spending you've been spending way more than that number you have in your head that you think you're spending and it's okay to separate restaurants and grocery store which is not a bad idea because restaurants ought to be like zero while you're getting out of that and the grocery store if you don't if you do go to a restaurant you'll spend your grocery store money in a heartbeat and then you got no no food at all and the family is kind of skinny and hungry and all that kind of stuff we don't do that the second thing about a budget is you must sit down together and do the budget you have you're married you have to do this together well I can't get nice bouncer you have a marriage problem you don't have a budget problem and I'll tell you I have found no data points in 30 years of doing this I've seen almost no examples of people who bust through getting out of debt I've never never have I had a debt free scream on the air and I said okay what's the secret and they say well you know he doesn't that mean I deal what's going on I did it all by myself he just came down and stood here you know it never happens because it's almost impossible to drag deadweight through a get out of debt plan and drag them into a budget you're just not dealing with adults you have to be a grown man in a big grown woman you have to make adult-like decisions here you have to step into this and do it so once you set your budget now you guys stick with it here's hard part the first month you do your budget you suck at doing the budget first month I did a budget I sucked at doing a budget was way off and so you're gonna have to sit down and have emergency budget committee meetings with your spouse and adjust the budget because you under budgeted some categories which means since you've spent every dollar that if you're gonna raise one category by 150 dollars you've got to lower other categories by under $50 you're not in Congress you can't spend more than you thought you were you can't spend more than you had coming in you you know it's income - outgo equals zero not income - outgo equals a deficit we don't do deficit spending in our households that's called debt and you're gonna do what run your budget on a credit card now this is just plain stupid we're not going to talk about that so every dollar has an assignment and your first month you're going to seventeen emergency budget committee meetings the second month you'll get a little better at it you'll only have about five or six emergency budget committee meetings the third month by the third month of doing this it'll start to work and you'll only have one or two emergency budget committee meetings in a month most months you'll have a one you have to sit down and do some adjusting mid month in other words or somewhere along they'll be something that pops up that was quote unquote unexpected it's not really an emergency fund issue we just need to budget adjust we need to budget adjust we need to budget adjust a budget adjustment meeting let's see once you agree on this with your spouse both of you are agreeing to stick to it and you pinky swear and spit shake we're not doing anything else this is it the good news is a couple years back we spent several million dollars in about a year and a half developing and have continued to develop the world's best budgeting tool that is free for you to use it's called every dollar the every dollar app for your phone is so simple and we've made it even easier by creating a guide to budgeting that will help those of you that need a little extra help it goes through everything you need to do to set up your first budget or to make next month's budget even better and the guide to budgeting is free you can sign up at every dollar calm or you can text GTB guide to budgeting GTB 233 789 you want the free guide the budgeting covers the stuff I was just talking about GTB text G tb-3 230 GTB that's all in it no it is free but don't you say free GTB text that 233 789 33 789 or you can just go over to every dollar the app is free anyway so you can sign up for the every dollar app and it helps you do all this you can build out your budget in about 10 minutes it's very easy to do but the trick then is the both of you have to be involved and you have to stick to it and you have to do your mid month adjustments which the first two months are gonna be a lot of them it's okay you're learning something new your course correct your course correct your course correct you got this you can do this it works so good so text GTB guide to budgeting GTB 233 789

Channel: The Ramsey Show Highlights

Views: 490,608

Keywords: the dave ramsey show, budget money debt cash, real estate, insurance, how to make money, dave ramsey, save, credit card, compound interest, buying house, buy, snowball, Budgeting Teaching Segment, budgeting, budget, money, family, teaching, personal finance, finance, income, financial education, Is Budgeting Really That Hard?, budgeting tips, how to budget, budgeting for beginners, how to budget and save money

Id: ZRTM7fm3w-w

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 17 2019