January 2021 – Katty’s Wallet

Budgeting is intimidating

January 31, 2021March 21, 2021 Naked SoulLeave a comment

I tried to start budgeting three times and failed. Three times! Luckily, I am very stubborn, and if I fail in something, I persist if not to the mastery, to at least of the “feel confident” point. So now I budget, and it is part of my everyday life.

I must confess it is extremely rewarding. It brings a sense of ownership and control over my money. It also dramatically lowers anxiety associated with “what if […], and I don’t have enough money”. It also helps you to live beyond your means, save money… The rewards are countless.

But… Before I came to the point where I am now, I struggled. And now participating in the budgeting communities, I still see people are intimidated by budgeting. It feels so overwhelming in the beginning! In this post, I try to express tips that I would have given to me in the past, during my initial 3 unsuccessful attempts.

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Budget in plain English (…and in pictures)

January 17, 2021March 21, 2021 Naked Soul1 Comment

For some the budgeting looks intimidating. It looked so for me before I started. To tell the truth, it was so intimidating, that I postponed my decision to start a budget for almost 20 years.

Now I face a new challenge: I am trying to bring my knowledge to my 12-years old daughter. I literally have a 5-10 minutes span of attention to bring all the wisdom I acquired. That is how I created the explanation. Hopefully, it will be useful for others, too.

All things are difficult before they are easy.
Thomas Fuller

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I’m tracking expenses… now what? Step by step plan to optimize spending

January 4, 2021March 21, 2021 Naked SoulLeave a comment

Tracking expenses is the first stepstone to budgeting, building wealth, and all other fancy financial applications. But for some reason, it is not an easy transition.

I clearly remember my frustration about 3 months after I started to track my expenses. I was staring at the computer monitor on the neat rows of numbers. The number themselves don’t tell me what to do, where to move. Do I save enough? How can I see the progress? What do I need to work on in terms of money behavior?

In this post, I provide the strategy I eventually follow. It was not a straight path, and I had a lot of tries and fails, but looking back, here is what I would have suggested myself in the very beginning.

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