r/budgetingforbeginners

I everyday spend so much money for idk what, just food and useless stuff.
I only have cash payment and no online.
I bought a money box, it’s a piggy bank, a rectangular box with small boxes to mark like ₹50,₹100,₹200,500. I was not able to share the photo of it. You can search it online on any shopping app for it.
I bought this money bank and till 10 k I saved money then spend it on something or another.
I keep a goal to buy something expensive with the huge amount of money I save but never filled the box.

I used to only look at my expenses when I felt like I was spending too much. Usually by then I had no idea where the money had gone. Recently I started doing a quick monthly review of everything coming out of my account. Not just rent and groceries but also smaller recurring charges that are easy to ignore. It is surprising how many things can stay active for months just because they are only a few dollars.

Do you have a regular habit of reviewing your expenses, or do you only check when your budget feels off?

I’m a 20-year-old guy working as a freelancer, and I’m fortunate enough to be earning a pretty good amount. The problem is that despite earning well, I’m barely saving anything.

I don’t really spend money on expensive clothes, gadgets, or other flashy things. I do waste some money on things like games, but nothing that should explain where all my income is going.

For the past year, I’ve also been financially supporting my entire family because my dad lost his job and has been unemployed since. Around 30–40% of my income goes toward household and family expenses. I’m completely okay with supporting them—that’s not what frustrates me.

The frustrating part is that I have no idea where the rest of my money goes.

There’s usually one big household payment at the beginning of the month, followed by lots of small payments almost every day. By the end of the month, I look at my balance and wonder where everything went.

I’ve realized my biggest problem isn’t necessarily how much I’m spending—it’s that I have no proper system for tracking or controlling it.

For people who’ve been in a similar situation, how did you fix this? What’s the simplest way to track income and expenses when you have lots of small transactions throughout the month? I’d especially appreciate advice from other freelancers or people supporting their families.

I used to track my yearly and monthly budgest in a DIY Google sheet, but I wanted to switch to something more automated and less amateur looking. I recently signed up for Monarch (plus version even) and set it up. I love the interface, the different menus, and the ease of expesnes being automatically categorized.

However, I'm very disappointed with their "budgetting" aspect. From what I understand, you're not able to see your yearly spend per category next to what you had acutally bugetted, nor the difference between the two year-to-date. You can only see this in the Month view, and the remaining positive/negative value in the month view is only the YTD remaining value, not what you acutally have left to spend in the present year.
TL;DR: I don't like that I can't see the bid-picture state of my yearly finances that way.

I'm torn because I really like their app but I can't beleive they don't have this super basic feature that my spreadsheet had. I feel like Monarch is basically just a cashflow aggregator app, but an actual budgetting/planning app.

Has anyone had the same realizaton/annoyance? (Did you find any workarounds?)

What other personal finance / budettings apps would you recommend?

I feel like this is a common question, but I can't find a definitive answer

Let's say I have a yearly spending budget for clothes, for example $200. I expect to have most months where I won't buy any clothes, but maybe one random month where there is a sale and I'll spend most of the yearly budget on it. Say I set an annual target for the category BUT the spendy month comes early in the year and I haven't had the chance to build up the allocation toward that expense (say I only have 50 allocated and I'm spending 150). I won't restrain from buying during the sale (it will be cheaper, I don't want to miss the opportunity), so I WILL have to overspend. BUT, that won't be accounted for, in the sense that I don't have something keeping track of that annual budget for the category.

In this scenario I don't really know which month is the sale, so I can't set a target for that specific month. And even if I could know in advance, my question is what happens in the kind of scenario that can't be known?

The 50/30/20 rule (50% needs / 30% wants / 20% savings) is usually the first budgeting framework beginners meet. It's simple, memorable, and a genuinely good starting point. But after watching a lot of beginners try it, there's a consistent failure mode: it assumes your months are regular. For many people - variable income, irregular bills, one-off expenses - no month is "regular."

Here's the comparison as I see it:

Where 50/30/20 shines

• Zero setup: three buckets, one rule, you can start today
• Great diagnostic: if your needs are 70%+, the problem isn't discipline, it's fixed costs
• Forces the savings conversation from day one

Where it cracks

• Percentages of what? Variable income makes the buckets move every month
• One bad week "breaks" the rule, and broken-feeling budgets get abandoned
• The needs/wants boundary is blurry in practice (is a gym membership a need? a work commute coffee?)

The flexible-ranges alternative

• Instead of exact splits, each category gets a range: groceries €250–320, fun €60–120, etc.
• Savings is a fixed automatic transfer on payday (an amount, not a percentage - it doesn't wobble with income)
• A weekly 15-minute check-in adjusts next week instead of judging last week
• A "life happens" buffer range absorbs repairs/birthdays so one surprise doesn't collapse the system

The honest limitation: ranges require slightly more setup and an actual weekly habit. 50/30/20 needs neither - which is exactly why it's better for someone starting from zero. My take: 50/30/20 is a great first month, ranges are a better year two.

Curious what this community has seen: did 50/30/20 stick for you long-term, or did you end up modifying it into something looser? What was the modification?

(Posted from the Finelo account - we build a financial-literacy app. No links, just the framework; happy to be corrected in the comments.)

I want to start budgeting seriously, or at least keeping better track of my purchases and expenses. Is it wise to use an app? If so, recs? And are there free ones?

Welcome to the weekly thread for all things budgeting apps!

This is the dedicated space to ask for app recommendations, share your reviews, and discuss the tools you use to manage your money.

• Found an app you love? Tell us what it is and what makes it great.
• Looking for a new app? Describe what features you need, and the community can help.
• Have questions about an app's features? Ask away!

Let's keep the main feed clean and have all our app talk right here. Dive in!

I finally have a consistent paycheck and health insurance. The only thing is it’s so expensive to just see a doctor.

I want to start building a savings account too (any recommendations welcome, right now I use Marcus by Goldman Sachs).

How do you budget / manage your finances? Do you budget at the start of the month? At the end? Anyone who is financially stable please help!! I’m so tired of being broke!!! And who knows how long this job will last!!!

I work at The Farmer's Dog and used to assume fresh food was out of reach for most people. Turns out the per-day math tells a different story than the sticker price — a small dog can run around $2-3 a day, which reframed how I thought about it.

That said, everyone's situation is different and fresh food isn't the right call for every budget. What I've started thinking about is pet food as one line item in the total cost of dog ownership rather than just finding the cheapest option. Vet bills, medications, preventative care — food is one piece of a bigger picture.

Curious how people here actually think about this. Do you prioritize lowest cost on food or is it one of the areas you're willing to spend more on?

Hi everyone! I hope you're doing well.

I have a minimum budget of 8k and a maximum of 12k, although I try not to spend after crossing 10k.

I have two investments, I am using them to save for a friends trip next year, which amounts to a total of 6.5k. I was able to manage my budget for the previous two months because my younger sibling was at home and didn't require pocket money.

This month, their college began and they need money every other week. So, either I, or our parents send the money. I can manage sending around 2k and a total of 4k in the month.

Despite all my attempts to curb spending— I even eat the boring PG food to avoid spending money in the office canteen; walking to avoid using autos— I always exceed my budget and screw up my desired balance in my bank account.

I make donations very rarely. I made two donations this month and now my budget is completely messed up.

Can I get tips to maintain it? Thank you!

Budget: 8k-12k.

Investments: 6.5k (total)

Pocket money to sibling: 4k max.

I have tried Rocket Money and Monarch, but I am creating my own, and want to compare it to others. Rocket Money does not seperate my business expenses out and Monarch is expensive, what other ones do you use?

I whipped up my own budgeting spreadsheet back in March 2026. In it, I have two sheets: a "master sheet" with the names, amounts, and due dates of my expenses, and an "expense calendar" that projects upcoming expenses off the master sheet + how much I'll have left over after given income. I have it set to where my monthly expenses over $100 are broken down into 4 to account for my (currently) weekly pay. I also tried making it adjust loan balances accordingly, but that turned into a PITA when I wanted to make extra payments and then have to adjust the formula as such.

I'm not looking to change how I budget (except for actually tracking all my expenses vs. only my fixed expenses), only to pivot from using a spreadsheet. My top requirements are:

• itemized expense tracking
• rolling calendar view (that is friendly towards multiple pay cycles, in the event of a job change)
• Auto-calculated leftover funds after income

I tried Monarch, and while I liked almost everything about it, it definitely seems more built for monthly pay. I still had to use my spreadsheet to determine exactly where everything goes. I don't mind a subscription service, provided it doesn't exceed $20/month (unless there's some feature I didn't know I needed).