I think budgeting and practical finances should be taught at multiple stages throughout a student’s life. I thought I knew the general idea but didn’t appreciate how much neglecting it would set me back.

What is your process for budgeting? As a starting point this article lists a few methods.

I use zero based budgeting where every dollar is assigned a purpose. I don’t end up sticking exactly to the plan, but I do keep a spreadsheet which lists my current balances and all expected expenses, so I can see my future balance and avoid going in the red. A couple times a month I cross off expenses which have been paid and update the balance. This is especially helpful to me because a big portion of my income is irregular month to month.

  • jcrabapple
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    11 months ago

    I mostly use the envelope method. My parents used literal envelopes when I was growing up, and somewhat early in my adulthood and in my career I came upon the online bank Simple. That bank changed the way I look at finances and saving money. So I still do it the way they taught me to do it.

    I now use a bank called Monzo, and they are working toward building in a very similar budgeting method to Simple, with “Pots” instead of envelopes, that automatically get filled with money every paycheck.

    • LesserAbe@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      I previously had Simple, and One before that, but banks don’t seem to like the buckets/pots/envelopes paradigm. You said Monzo is working towards it, what does that look like currently?

      • jcrabapple
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        11 months ago

        They have “Pots” that you can manually move money to, or have money moved to them every time you get paid, or move money to them on a set schedule.

        You can link your other bank accounts and credit cards, and have money moved to a “credit card pot” automatically to cover your credit card bills.

        https://monzo.com/us/money/see-it-all/