Kelly got into personal finance while she was struggling financially in grad school. Your very first step to getting your money under control should be to know where your money is going. Sit down and look at the last three months of your bank statements and categorize your purchases.

Being able to visualize and measure where your money is going is a fantastic first step for people wanting to at least see if you could make some changes to the way that you're spending your money.

After you figure out where your money is going, your second step is to make a budget. Kelly uses the envelope system. Each category of spending gets an "envelope" of money, and once there's no more money from the envelope, you can't spend any more on that category.

Homework

  • Figure out where your money has been going the last three months
  • Create a budget using an app like You Need A Budget, a notebook, or a spreadsheet

Resources

Guest: Kelly Vaughn

Host: Kent C. Dodds