Do you feel anxious about money? That’s okay! Financial therapists say that it’s completely normal.
Being unclear on what whether we are overspending or if our spending aligns with our goals can lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety. It also makes opening credit card statements a dreadful experience.
Many of us resist budgets because we want our freedom. In an effort to defy a budget, we end up spending more than we ought to, putting ourselves in a worse position than we were in before. But eventually that cycle ends up in more and more debt.
The truth is that getting control and setting a budget that reflects your values is the path to the freedom we all crave, but the budget needs to work for you.
With Weekly, you don’t need to feel unsure or worry about overspending. The app works to make sure all of your committed expenses are accounted for and provides a regularly updated “Safe-to-Spend” amount. This way you’ll know if you can afford to buy that coffee today and still have the money you need for dinner with friends tomorrow.
There are only two simple steps to get started
Step 1 — Start with your committed expenses
What expenses do you have every month that are always the same? I’m talking about things like your rent, phone bill, and subscriptions. The first step is to make sure you are accounting for all of these regular expenses. These are your “committed expenses” in that these are expenses you have already committed to — and the amount is constant.
Once you’ve identified your committed expenses, you can enter them into Weekly and indicate their frequency. So, if you have an annual “Amazon Prime” charge, enter it as a once a year expense. Weekly will automatically deduct what you need to “set aside” each week to afford this expense each year.
Step 2 — Get a Weekly spending amount for everything else
Everything that is not already committed as part of your regular payments is what you have left to spend on everything else including gas, groceries, haircuts, and gifts.
Unlike most budgeting apps, at Weekly, we break this amount down to a weekly amount. Why weekly? Because humans operate on a weekly basis, not a monthly one. Each week, you’ll start fresh with your Safe-to-Spend amount, and you can spend that on whatever you want — allowing you to live more in-the-moment. Rather than cutting out all takeout or coffee shop expenses, you can spend comfortably and make decisions as needs and opportunities come up.
Once your Weekly Safe-to-Spend amount gets to zero, you know you need to stop spending.
It sounds easy, and it really is! Our two-step process for controlling spending is helping budgeters stay on track and feel empowered.
Get started and find your Weekly Spending Amount
Photo by niklas_hamann on Unsplash
