This list could have 50 things on it, and you’d still end up missing something from your first budget, so be patient with yourself. This list is to help you build a plan for your money that is flexible, fits your life and is sustainable long term. If you don’t build certain things into your budget, you will get off track and frustrated quickly, and I want to help you avoid that. The key to winning with your money is to be consistent. Building a plan that works for you will make consistency so much easier.

Here are the items that are most frequently forgotten or not even considered when making a budget.

1-    Annual subscriptions or memberships. These guys can be sneaky and come up on us when we least expect them. These are often some of the items that can be eliminated from your budget if you need to find items to cut. You forget about them and boom, there they are on your credit card, without a plan to pay for them. If you have annual subscriptions you want to cancel, add a phone reminder to cancel before they renew.

2-    ‘Unexpected’ Expenses. These are the expenses that we really know are coming, but they don’t happen every month, so we don’t think to add them into our plan. A few things to think about: car and home maintenance, annual insurance premiums, property taxes, and gifting. Think about each expense as an annual amount (yes, for many of them you will be guesstimating), set a little money aside in a savings account, or multiple savings accounts, each time you get paid, so the money is there when you need it. By automating these transfers, you can save yourself some time.

3-    Money for YOU, yes, just for you, to do whatever you want with! Squirrel it away for months and buy something pricey or blow it every time. It doesn’t matter because it’s part of your plan and it is not impacting the other items in your budget. If you are looking to aggressively pay off debt, or grow your savings, this could be $20/pay. Just a little something to allow you to indulge once in a while.

4-    Money for the things in life that you value, the things that are most important to you. If you don’t prioritize what is important in your life, in your budget, you won’t feel aligned with your plan. Take a minute to think about what is important to you. For me personal growth and education is very important to me, so I set some of my business income aside so that I can invest in myself.

If you have recently started budgeting, or if you are a seasoned budgeter, shoot me an email (sherry@moneymindsetfc.com) to tell me something you fond was missing from your budget so I can share it to help someone else!

-Sherry