over the last 5 years I have tried and tested so many different strategies to manage my money and I've done that because understanding how to manage your money and be in control of your money is one of the most important life skills we can learn today it doesn't matter if you're making 50,000 or a 100,000 a year the number one thing that makes a difference is how you're able to manage that money and the real skill of money management is about making the most of the money that you have not just for investing and for
growing wealth but instead to find the perfect balance between living in the moment and planning for the future when you find something that a is easy to do and B it's easy to maintain then managing your money stops feeling like a chore so in this video I wanted to talk you through my three-step method for effectively managing your money in a way that makes you feel in complete control of what is coming in and out of your account every month I'll also give you some of my favorite tips along the way if you want to
use the same template that I have created then in the description box you can find completely for free the link to to download and use this to incorporate for your own finances as well okay so this is what the tracker looks like it's got the colorcoded spending categories the income section at the top and then the overview on this table over here so these sales will change color as you start filling in the sheet you'll see in just a moment you just have to click file make a copy and then you can duplicate it and
use it for yourself now step one is to define the three fword wait for it a key part of being in control of your money is defining where you want to but before we even do that you need to First figure out exactly how much money you're bringing home each month so this is the amount that lands in your bank account after tax if you have multiple income sources you want to include all of them in here your 9 to-5 day job your weekend gig your freelancing work that you do on the side maybe some
Investments that are paying off whatever these numbers are you want to put them in the top left blue section over here for example if I'm making 3,000 a month after taxes for my day job I'll put that here another 200 a month let's say from my creative side hustle and 500 a month from freelancing so you just plug in those numbers at the top now if you're employed the number is pretty straightforward it's the amount that lands into your bank account each month after tax and other state contributions have already been deducted so in this
case that's a 3,000 a month but if you already contribute towards your workplace pension you actually want to add that number back in So if you contribute say 200 a month towards your pension add that 200 back into this and so that number would instead be 3,200 the reason for this is because the amount that you're putting towards your pension contribution actually goes towards the future U category which will come to in a second now if you're self-employed or you're a freelancer you need to take into account taxes the last thing you want to do
is assume you have all this money coming in and Define your goals on a higher number than you should and then be disappointed when you don't hit your goals so in this case the 200 from my side hustle and the 500 from my freelancing work that is after tax once you put those numbers in your total income is calculated now that we've done that we can Define the three FS the fundamental bucket the fund bucket and the future you bucket you want to decide how much of your net income so the 3,700 in this case
you want to put towards each of these buckets the funds allocated to the fundamental bucket are dedicated to your essential needs these are the non-negotiables of Life housing Transportation food money placed in the fund bucket those are the costs that enrich your life with joy with experiences and then lastly everything you put into the future you bucket that is an investment towards the life you envision years down the road in the world of budgeting there is a popular guideline that you may have heard of called the 50320 rule it suggests that 50% of your net
income should go towards the fundamental needs 30% should go towards the fund bucket and 20% should go towards the future U so those are the percentages that I'm going to put into this column right here so 50% towards fundamentals 30% towards fun and and 20% towards future me and what you'll see as we start filling in the sheet and putting your numbers and your actual spending in is that the colors of these sales will change depending on whether or not you're in line with your goals or if you're overspending or under saving I do want
to make a quick Point here actually about the 50 3020 guideline it was introduced in 2005 in the book all your worth the ultimate lifetime money plan and so it was during a different economic landscape over the years we have seen inflation Rising healthcare costs inreased student loan debt fluctuating housing markets all of these factors have really impacted people's disposable income and the proportion of their income that goes towards their fundamental needs so you may want to modify these percentages and tweak them based on your unique circumstances you want to start filling in the three
colorcoded columns in the middle so the fundamentals the fun stuff and the future you the fundamentals like we said are the non-negotiables they are the fundamental things for your day-to-day living so this includes things like housing your rent or your mortgage payments includes utilities and other bills so we're talking about um water gas electricity it includes Transportation so your car payment train tickets to get to work or any other mode of Transport that you pay for groceries would also go into here Insurance minimum debt payments for your debt o ations and you want to find
what you spend on each of these by looking through your bank statements so your debit card statement your credit card statement or any apps that you use it may be that your app automatically categorizes your spending for you so maybe all your utilities come into one so you can put that one number as a total let's say 200 into this cell over here or you can split it up so break it down by water gas electricity it depends on how detailed you want this to be when it comes towards spending towards your needs you want
to as much as possible have this automated have direct debit set up so that everything is getting paid automatically the more friction you can take out of anything the more likely you're able to keep that thing up the last thing you want is to receive constant monthly reminders to pay your bills and then you need to remember your password log into your system enter your bank details manually transfer each month it's just not fun and these kind of things make managing your money a chore it creates unnecessary friction so once you go through and enter
all these numbers so let's say 1,200 for mortgage 100 for utility 30 for phone and you keep filling in these numbers you can then check the table on the right and that will immediately show how you are doing in relation to your goals so I had to set a Target here of 50% of my net income to spend towards the fundamentals but this sale here has turned red so I'm clearly exceeding that threshold so then you need to reassess that goal and that something will come to in step three and this column by the way
at the end it shows the actual amount that you're spending in the currency that you're spending in this way you have a clear idea of both the portion of your income that you're spending in terms of percentages towards each of these categories but also the exact amount you're spending as well then we have the middle column and that is the fun stuff now you want to be really clear with yourself here you want to clarify these categories from the outset you really don't want your fun stuff creeping into your needs just to justify some spending
so the fun bucket is all the things that are not essential these are the things that at the core are completely optional so examples of what can fall into the fun category include subscriptions like Netflix Spotify Amazon Prime entertainment so things like going out to the movies eating out getting that round of drinks self-care so things like your nails facial haircuts and traveling these are all examples of what falls into the fun category the fun bucket also includes those upgrade decisions that you make so if you're buying a Mercedes instead of buying a more economical
Toyota or if you're shopping at Marks and Spencers instead of Tesla goes or getting a gym membership instead of working out at home those are all upgrades they're little extras that you spend money on that makes life more enjoyable and more entertaining so you can see a few more examples that I've put in there and again you could split it out so I've got clothing as spending 200 100 in that category you could split that out and make it as detailed as you want you could have a line by line jumper trousers or whatever you've
bought in the clothing section everything could go into here once you fill in all the categories for your wants as I've done here the table on the right again will signal whether you're on track or whether you need to cut back once again in this case I'm spending 25% of my net income on my wats so the sale hasn't flagged up I've got some leeway I've got some room to spend more if I want and then the third column is the future UB bucket and this is all about paying yourself first there are a few
ways you can do this but I always recommend setting up automatic transfers from your bank account that you get paid into into a separate savings account as soon as you get paid again when you create a system that works for you you remove the need for willpower you remove any friction and there's no excuse not to save you don't get to the end of the month and realize you don't have enough money to be able to save like you said you would at the start of the month all of that push and pull just disappears
in this category you can include things like investing in stocks and shares topping up your emergency fund and putting money towards your savings funds if you're not sure where you should start and in which order you should put money towards I have a video right here that explains step by step where you should be putting your money and in what order when it comes to your savings fund I would also recommend having a separate account for each of your bigger saving goals so if you're saving for a house have a house fund if you're saving
for a car have a car fund have them all with specific purposes that way you're keeping them separate and you could easily just log into your account and check what the balance is and how far off or close you are to that goal it's a lot more motivating than having it all in one as just a savings pop so there a sale right here for the future U category that works in reverse if you're contributing less than the amount you initially planned for the future you the savings and investment bucket then the sale will turn
red indicating that you're not saving enough and then we're on to step three and that is the reflections arguably the most important part there's no point in coming up with all these goals and all these of questions you can consider and ask yourself is have you paid all your bills on time are there any late payments if so why can you set that up to be automatic are any of the sales read meaning either you spent more than you should or you saved less than you should if that's the case why did that happen what
did you spend on if it's that you're spending too much in the fun bucket then are there ways to get the same thing for less or is it that you simply need to reassess and cut some of those things out or maybe you spent less than you thought you would in your fun bucket in which case you can increase maybe your savings an investment section you could pay more towards yourself and pay off your debt faster it might be that this is the first month that you're tracking your spending in which case these percentages might
need some tweaking to make it something that is more sustainable over the long run instead of just like plugging the numbers and closing it and getting on with your life reflect at the end of the month and see where you can improve your finances once again if you do want to download and use the same one that I have it's linked completely for free in the description box below if you do use it this month come back and tell me how you get on I'd love to see what what you thought and how it helped
thank you for watching and see you next week
