3 Hacks to Conquer the Budget Motivation Collapse

How do you stay motivated when your budget keeps changing? 

Do you get discouraged when your budget doesn’t seem to work and you feel like quitting? 

Is it even worth it to follow a budget? 

Have you had any of those thoughts? I certainly have, but I have learned that sticking with a budget really does allow you to reach your money goals and to make progress.

Here are 3 hacks on getting motivated to work on your budget, keeping your motivation and how to make your budget easier to follow each month. 

Can I come along side you for just a moment and encourage you? Budgeting is an ongoing process that does take some time to really get a handle on how to budget effectively. I am still adjusting my budget, though not as much. 

I used to hate working on my budget. It never balanced right and the budget just seemed to scoff at me, because I would overspend or forget to include a large expense. 

Budgeting was overwhelming and caused mini-panic attacks so I would put it off until it became a huge mess and took many hours to get back on track. Umm, stressful and definitely not the approach I would recommend. 

And honestly, it wasn’t until some time after I became debt free that I realized how great a tool budgeting can be and started to really appreciate a budget. (The actual task of entering everything into Quicken is not my favorite thing to do, but I love the whole concept of a budget.)

What caused the change? 

I discovered my Why. I had a reason to budget; to see my husband graduate with no student loans, to be outrageously generous, to have options in life I wouldn’t have if I didn’t control my money and I also realized the freedom which came with not having payments. 

Do you have your Why?

If not, spend some time thinking about what you could do or want to do if your money was under control. What would your life look like if you didn’t have any payments. Where could you go? What could you do? 

Finding your Why gives such a huge motivational boost to continue sticking with your budget even when it changes. You now know Why you are going through the often tedious part of budgeting and this propels you to continue until you see the results you are hoping for, come to fruition. 

What is your one money goal you are focusing on? 

Another thing which helps you stay motivated is having just one money goal to work on. 

When you have too many goals you are juggling and trying to accomplish at the same time, you will fail miserably and the motivation to stick with your budget is deflated like an old balloon. 

How can you make your progress visual? 

Whether you are paying off debt or saving money, making your progress visual will definitely help you keep motivated. Use a spreadsheet or color in a picture, but find a way to track your progress in a visual manner. 

I was amazed at the impact tracking my progress had on my motivation to keep up with my budget when I was tracking every dollar saved last year!

Seeing your progress and how much you have left to go in a tangible way makes you realize you are actually accomplishing something and you start to try to figure out other ways to make more traction. 

This Savings Tracker spreadsheet is what I used in my experiment and I’ve made it available for you to use as well. 

Tips for tightening your budget so there are less changes 

I now want to address the second part of your question, ‘when my budget always changes’.

I’ve compiled some tips that I use to help you gain better control over your budget. 

Granted there will always be some fluctuation each month, but the goal is to get to a point with your budget where there are not many changes to be addressed. 

This process looks like this:

• Make a budget by writing down your income, all your expenses and payments. 
• During the first 3 months-6 months of budgeting, a lot of adjustments will be needed. You will forget about certain expenses or have to fine tune what is an realistic amount (i.e. groceries) and things will come up that you weren’t expecting.
• Include your annual expenses as a line item in your budget and put a portion aside each month into savings so you have the money in full by the time the bill is due. 

• You can also review last year to get an idea of expenses that should be included (or increased) into your budget as a monthly line item for this year, such as car repairs or medical expenses.
• Look ahead at this coming year, and start planning for upcoming expenses that you can see. 
• Include a small amount of extra money in your monthly budget to be used for those unexpected expenses which do come up. If you don’t use the money, you can apply it to your savings goal or paying off debt at the end of the month.
• Give yourself (and your spouse) some fun money to spend as you wish without needing to track it. 

• Make time to work on your budget each week so you don’t have to do quite so much and can stay on top of any problems. 
• Find a system that works for you. There are online options like Every Dollar or Mint. You can buy budgeting software or use good ol’ fashioned pencil and paper. 
• If you are married, you will want to have monthly budget meetings to discuss the upcoming month’s budget and how to work in the expenses/bills specific to that month. However, in the first few months, you may have to come together more often when you need to make adjustments to the budget. 

Hang in there. It will get better. 

Once you have a good handle on the basic essential bills each month, sticking to a budget becomes much easier to manage. 

Finding motivation when your budget keeps changing comes in part from finding your Why and visually tracking your progress.

Tightening up your budget so there are not many changes to make each month will help with the motivation as well.

Finally, give yourself permission to not have the budget be perfect and to know that it will change, but that’s ok.