Do you need a personal budget consultant? It’s something of a loaded question, isn’t it? 

I mean, sure – it would be nice. Personally, I’d love to have a personal trainer or “life coach” or whatever it is they call themselves these days, and maybe a small household staff as well. Nothing fancy – just a full-time cook, maybe a maid or two, and a personal assistant to keep track of my appointments and make sure meds get refilled, batteries get changed, and filters get replaced every six months or so.  

Oh, and a court jester of some sort. Someone to sing and do tricks and tell jokes when I’m in the mood. But not the kind who makes pithy observations about what’s really going on but disguises it as humor. I don’t want that sort of pressure. I’m more of a “pie in the face” kind of guy.  

Do You Need a Personal Budget Consultant ?

So rather than drag it out as proper blogging methodology suggests, let me offer you my response to the question right up front. Do you need a personal budget consultant? Probably not. On the other hand, do you need a personal budget? Absolutely.  

Times You Might Need a Personal Budget Consultant 

Now, there are situations where outside financial advice is entirely appropriate. You might choose to hire a professional tax preparer each year to help you file your taxes. If you come into an inheritance or win the lottery, it might make sense to speak with someone about how to best utilize and nurture your newfound resources. Sometimes it’s much better to pay someone to help you make investment decisions or arrange your retirement – especially if you’re not accustomed to managing such large dollar amounts.  

But for most of us, trying to keep our finances on track (or get them back on some sort of track) - to pay down debt, save a little for retirement, and figure out how to repair that upstairs bathroom all at the same time – it's not usually a personal budget consultant we need. What we really need is a personal budget. 

Besides, isn’t it a tiny bit ironic to spend part of your limited resources one someone whose job it is to tell you how to better allocate your limited resources? Seems like the first suggestion any personal budget consultant should make is, “start by firing me and take a little initiative on your own.”   

Why Now Is the Perfect Time To Create a Personal Budget 

We shouldn’t need a good reason to start doing things better. Something about human nature, though, tells us that Monday is a better day to change course than Thursday. A New Year is somehow better suited for resolutions than, say, the first day of Spring or the week after Christmas.  

This time, though, the economic and personal shakeup has been a bit more real than we’d like to admit. If you’re reading this, then you’ve made it this far. You've probably learned a few hard lessons and found out a few things about yourself or people around you that you didn’t really want to know. Things should be getting better from here, but no one can really say with any certainty what the future holds – for us as individuals, as families, or as a nation.  

We can’t control everything, but we can control the stuff we can control. We have a chance to take more effective control of our personal and family finances and to make better choices moving forward. The best time to do that is right now.  

Creating Your Personal Budget 

One of the most challenging realities of creating and maintaining a personal or household budget is that it’s not something you can do in a whirlwind weekend then safely forget about until next Spring. Unlike cleaning out the garage or purging those leftovers in the fridge, your budget takes time to create, time to become fully functional, and requires regular attention and periodic adjustment in order to be meaningful and useful.  

Start by gathering your bills and receipts for a month. Open up those bank statements and any other financial paperwork you have. Then make a basic list – all of your income in one column and all of your spending in the other.  

Even before you refine or organize this part, be aware it will take a few months before it’s reliably accurate. You may actually spend way more on groceries most months than you did in the past 30 days for some reason, and your budget will have to adjust to accommodate that. You may not always have as many repair or medical expenses as you have the past few months, so that column might evolve a bit for the better. That’s OK – that's part of the process.  

Create a Budget Categories

Now it’s time to organize. Categories won’t be the same for everyone. Your budget has to work for you – not for everyone else. Typical budget categories, however, might include rent/mortgage payments, car or truck payments, groceries, utilities, entertainment, clothing & other “essentials,” insurance premiums, etc. This is where some people begin to resist the process. It turns out there’s often a difference between what we SAY is important to us and what we actually spend our time and money on. The same family who wants to help out more at church or sincerely intends to donate to that worthy cause but just can’t find the cash may discover they spend over $50 a month on streaming services they rarely actually watch. You start to notice recurring charges on your credit card statements for things you have to track down to figure out what they even are, then spend another hour trying to cancel the “virus cleaner” for that laptop you recycled three years ago.  

Budgets aren’t about making you feel bad. They’re certainly not about telling you how you’re allowed to spend your own money. It’s YOUR money, after all. What budgets are very good at, however, is helping us see very clearly exactly where all of our money is going each month. That’s the part we don’t always actually want to know, even when we think we do. That’s the part that prompts us to consider serious change.  

Create a Budget Online 

There are many... complicated things about living in the 21st century (you know, global pandemics, political turmoil, trying to understand the rules of The Masked Singer...). There are, however, substantial conveniences as well. One of these is the easy availability of budget assistance online or via your smartphone or tablet. Obviously, we write about basic budgeting tips quite a bit around here. Our preference is for the practical stuff – how to cut back on monthly expenses without radically altering your lifestyle and such. Other sites are more into the “how to make your own toilet paper from pet fur and belly button lint” school of thought, and more power to them if that’s your thing.  

You can also create a spreadsheet in any word processing program or in numerous online applications to help you build, refine, and track your budget. See, that’s where far too many of us fall off the budgetary wagon before we’ve even fully left the barn. Once you’ve made your initial budget, the idea is to try to keep your spending pretty close to those numbers – and to refine your budget as necessary to make that possible.  

That’s the part we don’t like. It’s like with losing weight or eating better. We’re happy to buy the treadmill, join the gym, print out the soy-based recipes, celebrate the greens, etc. The trick is actually doing the exercise and making the meals (then eating them without downing half of a pecan pie as desert).  

Budget - Ultimative Tool Against Overspending

Let me say it again – your budget is not about guilt or failure or anyone else telling you how to spend your own money. Budgets are about clarity and taking better control of your spending and your financial choices. We spend most of our young lives wishing we had more control over ourselves – how we spend our time, where we live, who we hang out with, etc. Somewhere in our 20s, though, we start trying to persuade ourselves that nothing we do is actually our own choice – like we don’t want to take either credit or blame for our own adulting. As you track your spending and adjust your budget, you see more clearly where your money is going and you can make better choices as a result.  

Common Budgeting Realities  

I mentioned recurring charges earlier because for me that’s one of the biggest things I have to stay on top of. Honestly, it’s like I never actually remember agreeing to monthly, semi-annual, or annual charges for ANYTHING, and yet every few months there’s something that pops up which I have to track down and figure out how to cancel. It’s usually even legit – meaning it really was something I agreed to and then promptly forgot about. It’s embarrassing, given what I do for a living. Inexcusable! 

But it makes a difference.  

The thing I hear most from readers about the harsh realities of paying attention to a monthly budget is that they begin to realize just how much they’re paying in credit card interest and the periodic late fee. I get it. We try not to think about it too much, promising ourselves that while THIS month we’re paying the minimum allowed, NEXT month we’ll really be able to take a chunk off that balance! Forcing ourselves to pay attention suddenly makes paying down those cards feel like a much bigger priority.  

For others it’s the usual things – too much eating out, cutting back on unnecessary utility usage, planning ahead for major purchases to take advantage of seasonal sales or wait for the right deals, etc. Our major purchases matter – buying a home, financing a vehicle, putting in that home karaoke bar, etc. We’re usually paying attention for those, however. It’s getting used to taking care of the little things that adds up over time – for better, or for worse.  

What Are the Best Budgeting Tools? 

The best budgeting tools are the ones that work for you. If an Excel spreadsheet does the trick, then you run with that. If you prefer to create a budget online, then go for it.  

For many of us, our phones pretty much either rule or coordinate our lives. Now, I’m a big believer in the idea that the best technology doesn’t make our decisions for us; rather, the best technology makes it easier for us to make better informed decisions more efficiently and effectively. Your car doesn’t pick the destination. Your streaming service may make recommendations but you decide what to watch. Budgeting tools should work the same way.  

We’ve been rethinking and reimagining what it should look like to be able to access and control your accounts, your budget, your payments, your savings – even your investments – as easily as text your partner or check the weather. For many of us, time and effort is our number one excuse for not making and sticking to a meaningful personal budget. We’d like to eliminate that excuse by making it as easy to track your spending and project your needs for the next month as easily as you get directions to the coffee shop where you’re meeting your personal budget consultant. 

You know, to let them know you won’t be needing them anymore. Try to let them down easy. Maybe you should at least pay for the Danish just to keep it classy.  

Final Thoughts

We can’t always make it easy to get out of debt or set up a comfortable retirement or make tough choices about your income or spending. What we can do is keep offering information, tools, and connections to make it more possible. You can do this. And you don’t have to do it alone.