$$$ 1st Payday $$$

How excited do you get for payday? Why do you get excited? Do you get excited because you can pay those bills? Or buy those shoes? Or maybe you're like me who gets excited because it's buuudgeeet tiiiiime!

78% of workers live paycheck to paycheck.

Do you budget? How often do you budget? Do you have a general idea of where your money goes or do you tell every single penny where it will go? I tell every penny where to go and this post is going to show you how I do that. 
Full disclosure, I will not be using my actual paycheck amount.

We get paid on the 15th and last day of each month. Below is an example of what I do when I receive that paycheck. I do this for both myself and my husband, JP. I use the net amount of what shows up in my bank account. So, after taxes, 401K, medical, HSA, FSA, etc.

You will see what I put as my paycheck total example of $2,500. This includes our water bill of $26.68 and cell phone bill of $142. You will also note when those bills are due. We include the bills on our first pay cycle of the month that will be due before the next pay cycle. The $50 auto is what we will need for gas, ubers, etc  before the next pay cycle. We also have down $100 because we know that JP will need to pay $100 when he sees the doctor. We also have $450 towards food. This food budget is what we use for groceries, coffee, cats (food and litter), alcohol, toiletries, household products and eating out. This will last us until our next pay cycle on the 31st. The last thing you will see on there is something I call our "flywheel" account. You can call this anything you want, but when I was talking to a mentor of mine, he called this his flywheel account and I just adopted that from him. Our flywheel account is the holding place for all future purchases, bills, vacations, etc. I plan to do it's own blog post about what all is in my flywheel account sometime soon.

You will notice there are bills missing, such as our mortgage, electric, gym, etc. and those will come out of the 31st pay period. That payday post will come at the end of the month. I also did not post JP's paycheck on this post but his paycheck usually goes towards savings and spending money for us.

36% of Americans spend their entire paycheck every month and 19% spend more than they make.

It doesn't matter how much money you make, all that matters is that you live within your means. If you do not know where your money is going, start tracking it in 2020. You will be surprised by how much goes towards categories you didn't think you needed to adjust.

Have questions? Want help with your budget? I will help you for free, just reach out! Be sure to comment and subscribe.