My Home Budget Secret

I know what you’re thinking - talking about money isn’t exciting unless you’re telling me I’ve won lots of it.

But hear me out - as a new mom AND someone who only freelanced (aka hadn’t had a traditional 9-5) for over a year, needing a home budget overhaul was an understatement.

You may think it’s easy to create a home budget.  And maybe for you it is! Congrats if you’re someone who can find and utilize a free download from Pinterest. But if you’re like me, someone who has tried that a million times, always with the best of intentions, you’ve always stopped using it after a month. 

I’ve tried quite a few of those free downloads. I kept trying to find the perfect budget, the right one for our family. I kept trying because in my head spending money on something to help me SAVE money seemed silly. 

I was SO VERY WRONG.

A little over 6 months ago, we finally made the decision to sit down with Manny of budgetforward . I don’t know how often I say this, but it was the BEST decision I’ve ever made for my family’s finances.

Yes, there is a fee for Manny’s services.  But he also meets with you in person (or Skype) for hours over multiple meetings. It’s quite literally worth EVERY penny.

Let me also say that Manny is married to a friend of mine. So I had known a little bit about what he was doing, starting this company, designing home budgets for people, etc.. I just never thought I’d need to use his services. I was so confident that I could handle things myself and scared to ask for help. Which is silly because, if I’m being honest, I was an English major in college. I despised math and always needed a tutor to help me pass ANY math class.

So why would I think that I could create a fluid and functional home budget?  Because as a wife and mother sometimes we find ourselves feeling the need to DO IT ALL. Guess what? You don’t have to! 

I look back at our decision to work with Manny and I’m still so proud of myself for taking that step. It’s truly changed our life!

Manny sat with me (because my husband humbly bowed out, saying that this was just a “CFO” issue and he’ll be happy with me just “telling him” how much he can spend and when haha) for over 3 hours at our first meeting. He came to our home, helped entertain the baby and loved on our dogs all while going through the hot mess that was our personal finances - bills being paid by different accounts or credit cards, multiple accounts, not knowing what paid where, consolidating, and the list goes on. Bottom line - he was patient, helpful and inspired confidence.  Confidence that moving forward, he would create a personalized budget tailored to our families needs that I would be easily able to navigate. That’s a BIG DEAL. And obviously something my college math professors were obviously never able to accomplish.

By the end of the first meeting he had a good grasp on what our values and goals were as a family and what was important to us and our future.  He also had a grasp on our actual finance map, understanding the crazy web that we had unintentionally created over the years by pushing things to the “to-do” list. The nice thing about having a third party come in is the unbiased TRUTH that they can dump on you. They keep it real with what your “wants vs. needs” are. 

So he took all that information, plus the nitty gritty how-much-we-spend-on-what information, went home, built this budget, and met with me again to discuss it and train me on it. 

You guys, I was BLOWN AWAY. I requested that it be created on Google Sheets (their version of Excel) so that I could access it on my phone and edit/update in real time. It’s so easy to use and I’ve been able to duplicate the pages for each month, creating a streamlined and detailed map for our year.

FOR OUR YEAR.

That’s huge. Especially for a planner like me. I thrive on a plan, on knowing what happens when and being able to physically write it on a calendar. 

If you’re ready to experience financial freedom like we have, please contact BudgetForward. It will be the best decision you ever make!