Below is an illustrated example of our automated finances (numbers changed, gender-neutral names added). After a few months of testing and tweaking, everything is pretty much on auto-pilot. The basic idea is for every month:
- Bills (on autopay) & recurring fixed costs throughout the month on credit card
- “Pay yourself first” by putting money in retirement and savings accts (this can be set up to be automatic)
- Pay any other bills (rent, loan, anything you can’t pay w/ CC)
- Spend what you have left (Guilt Free Spending)
- Any money beyond that goes into our 2nd savings acct (kinda like rollover minutes)
This works for us as it’s not really a “budget” — we pay into our savings goals, and spend the rest. You can get more in-depth info on how & why in the book I Will Teach You to Be Rich.
Here’s a google spreadsheet version as well:
I’ve made a sample google spreadsheet — if you want to save it to your google drive, open the link and go to: “File > Make a copy…”
We use Capital One 360 for our savings accounts. It’s easy to set up multiple accounts for your different savings goals. Sign up via our affiliate link.