Budgeting is an important part of life because living as if every day is your last is not a great mindset to have when tomorrow does come. By budgeting, it helps you live your life a little more comfortably without having to worry about living paycheck to paycheck.
A great way to help your money go further in life is to invest it. Investments come in all shapes and sizes. They’re a great way, if you get it right, to make your money work harder for you and to hopefully generate a healthy profit from the cash you invest.
Of course, not all investments go to plan and you have to be comfortable in the mindset that you could lose all the money you invested. However, no one won anything by not risking something at least. Here are some helpful tips for budgeting your money so that you too can invest some of it in 2023.
Set yourself up with a budget spreadsheet
Firstly, you’ll want to get yourself set up with a budget spreadsheet. This is important because it helps you monitor how much you’re bringing in as a household and how much is going out every month.
By setting up a budget spreadsheet, you have a much better idea of how much it is available to spend and how much is left over to invest with. You may find that by having this budget, you can make any necessary cuts that can come away from certain luxuries and towards investments that might in fact bring you more funds to play with.
Creating a budget spreadsheet is easy enough, with most opting for the traditional Microsoft Excel. However, there are still plenty of tools and software that you may wish to use that offer more customizable options for your budget rules.
Follow the 50/30/20 method
The 50/30/20 method is a useful method for those who are wanting to save money in general. When it comes to investing, it’s good to save capital. There’s nothing better than having some capital in your account that isn’t tied to any volatile investment.
With this method, it divides your take-home income into three suggested categories of spending. The 50% will go towards your needs. These are your household bills and everything you need in order to survive. With 30%, these go on your wants, which are often your luxuries and then the 20% will go on savings and for any debt repayments.
It’s worthwhile considering both that 30% and 20% as opportunities to set aside funds for investment. Of course, it’s important to still save in your capital pot and to ensure any debt is being paid off. However, you may find, a considerable amount of money can be put towards investments!
Create a separate bank account for investment funds
To help with investment and keep it separate from the rest of your money, make a separate bank account. This is important to keep control of your investing habits because just like gambling or with an addiction, the allure of spending more money than you have on investments can cause a lot of problems.
In order to keep everything healthy, have a separate bank account. This is going to be helpful when it comes to monitoring your investments and how they’re performing. You may find that you create multiple pots for your investments depending on how many you have going at one time.
Keep your eyes on the bigger picture
It’s important to keep an eye on the bigger picture when it comes to investments because when you go into it initially, it doesn’t often provide much in the way of results. A lot of investment opportunities are designed to be long-term, meaning you’re not going to see the fruits of your money’s labor until many years down the line.
Of course, there are some investments that are more short term but the majority will have you waiting around for a while. For example, if you’re wanting to send and receive dogecoin, it’s something you’ll want to invest in regularly in larger amounts and keep it locked away in that investment for decades.
Set goals to help with budgeting
To help make budgeting easier, set goals. Setting goals is a great motivator and something that can help greatly when you’re trying to set aside any funds for investment.
If you’re someone who struggles with budgeting and saving in general, what is the end goal for these investments? Perhaps you want to have investments that will become the finances for your retirement. Maybe it’s a goal that you want, to become financially free by a certain age.
Investing can provide financially beneficial for many who go into it and it could even help you retire earlier than planned. Set goals to help you budget easily.
Tackle any debt quickly
Debt is something that hinders your savings, so it’s important to tackle any debt as quickly as possible. With that being said, you want to wipe that debt sooner rather than later. While it’s important to do it quickly though, you don’t want to be stopping yourself from saving money to go toward investments.
Try to pay off as much as possible but make sure to leave funds available for your savings pots and as money for investing.
Take on side jobs and opportunities to make extra cash
Saving money is likely coming from your one job or perhaps from a multitude of jobs. Whether you are a sole income maker or you’re combining your income with another person, there are lots of side hustles and jobs that you could take on to make extra cash.
If that’s something you’ve not explored yet, take a look online as there’s plenty of guidance and advice out there.
Budgeting your money to invest in 2023 is a great opportunity that you should be taking great advantage of. Whether you’ve started investing yet or not, make this the year that you make some significant changes in your finances for the better.