How to start budgeting with no money. It is exciting and better to budget when you’re either a low-income or high-income earner. Correct, right? Whichever one of them, at least you will be in the category of money earners that needs to budget for effective cash flow management.
But, what advantage do you have when you start budgeting with no money over budgeting with income as income earners do? Budgeting with no money freely teaches and imbibes in you plenty of frugal budgeting skills like debt and emergency consciousness that can help you focus on your financial values as you await your next-pay slip.
Do you know that the earnest desire of many income earners is to define and go for their financial values first at the arrival of their next pay-check slip?
Unfortunately, to the above question, most income earners struggle with cash flow management. Why? Because they are not able to define their financial values on time before spending because they don’t practice budgeting with no money!
Let’s get started, as you will learn and enjoy budgeting with no money.
Budgeting With No Money: Does It Work?
The idea of budgeting with no money appears unrealistic to many people, especially to no-money earners. It makes more sense if your budget, knowing full well that you’re expecting your take-home income in a few days, and as such, need to budget for its cash flow.
But then, you have no income yet, you even manage your low income, and at worst, no money anywhere, and then here you are reading about budgeting even without money. It’s OK to ask, does it work?
Budgeting with no money works, actually, but it is ultimately in your court, as you will stand a chance to always define and go for only what is valuable to your family at every moment before spending.
So, rest assured that as you begin to practice budgeting with no money and arranging your priorities to receive an A grade, you’ll be proud of any day, any time.
Tips to Make Budgeting With No Money Work For You
Budgeting without money can’t work for you unless you embrace a few tips that will make budgeting with no cash feasible.
When you embrace these tips, you are more steps ahead of your colleagues when it comes to managing your finances without having to misplace values that will make you run helter-skelter for either your short or long-term goals.
1. Give honest answers to these questions
If you’re able to provide honest answers to these questions, be rest assured that you are 50% happy that budgeting with no money will work for you.
- Do your spending habits reflect your values?
- Do you consider your priorities—your retirement before spending?
- Were you happy and fulfilled after spending that amount you ought not to spend?
- Can your spending habits affect either positively or negatively the people around you? E.g., your family.
2. Define and go for your values first
A headstart on budgeting with no money first requires you to give truthful and honest answers to the above questions because the lifeblood of your values solely depends on them.
Take, for instance, the first question—do your spending habits reflect your values? To answer this question, you need to clearly define what is first essential, urgent, and necessary for the survival of your family before spending a dime.
Do you value fun more than your already due rent? Is getting a new car more important than your kids’ school fees? Do you urgently need to clear off your debt to maintain a good credit score with your lenders rather than saving for your vacation trip next month?
How is defining and going for values related to budgeting with no money? Let’s proceed. Assuming you want to draw your budget based on your monthly allowance of $2,000 as a college student by arranging your needs and wants in their order of necessity, importance, and urgency.
Let’s say your mapped-out budget with no money using the 50/30/20 budgeting method that looks like this. The budget for Important needs is 50% of $2,000: Accommodation, tuition fees, rent that is due already, refilling of gas, groceries, textbooks, Tv subscription, etc. Others include Wants 30% off $2,000: shopping, a coffee at Starbucks, Netflix subscriptions, movie nights, etc. Savings 20% of $2,000: Replacing your old mini-computer with a medi-computer in three months.
Therefore, intelligently defining your values, that is, the things you consider essential, urgent, and then necessary for your survival, helps you categorize your spending and then judiciously release funds without any misallocation when money comes.
3. Learn frugal budgeting skills
Most people won’t believe this, but frugal budgeting skills are a ladder to financial stability most times.
What are frugal budgeting skills? It is simply a budgeting skill that enables you to spend wisely and carefully every bit of resources based on your simple lifestyle and concerning preservation for tomorrow’s sake.
So, if you can afford to spend $15 on Starbucks twice a week but choose to save up that amount and prepare your coffee at home, you won’t necessarily find it interesting to take coffee outside.
If you apply frugal skills when budgeting with no money when budgeting, it will always make you prioritize what needs immediate attention during your cash flows.
4. Integrate Debt consciousness—a frugal budgeting skill to adopt
In today’s world, every organization seeks to increase its revenue day after day, including debt financing companies. The typical way debt companies increase their money in the hands of their debtors is through late payment charges.
With this information, it is better to implement a zero-based budgeting method. A zero-based budgeting rule is where you expend all your income on your expenses with nothing left without(zero balance) having to borrow and then wallow in late debt repayment charges.
Hence, debt consciousness is a frugal skill that will help you to maintain a debt-free status during cash flows, as you’re always on the lookout not to owe anybody, no matter what.
5. Try Emergency consciousness—a frugal budgeting skill to adopt
If you have to answer a question like, why do you save part of your income? I’m sure you won’t just say nothing, even when it appears you may not have a short or long-term project to accomplish. So, your honest response would be to say I don’t know for now, but in case of emergencies, right?
Interestingly, quite several low-income earners, high-income earners, plus no money earners consciously and unconsciously save a bit of money for unforeseen events that won’t alert them before it happens in the future.
Alright, consider this. Do you know that the simple act of budgeting with no money you decide to start henceforth will naturally imbibe a frugal skill—emergency consciousness into you? Yes, that’s true!
Here is the trick. Although you may be broke at the moment, through budgeting with no money, you are better off prepared than a fellow who does not practice any form of budgeting at all, either they are low-income, no income earners, or even with no money earners.
6. Let your spending plan get used to you
The most successful way to get used to any spending plan you adopt is by embracing the first five budgeting tips with no money. It will continually keep you on track to always give honest answers to a few questions before spending your income.
Additionally, getting used to either your 50/30/20 budgeting plan or envelope budgeting plan, or zero-based budgeting spending plan also requires you to define and go for your values first and adopt frugal skills such as debt and emergency consciousness when you start budgeting with no money.
