$4500 a month! That is how much our family needs to survive for a month!
Sometimes life happens, and you need to cut down spending to JUST what is necessary to survive.
But do you KNOW how much your family needs to get through a month?
Not how much you are spending now, but just what you would have to spend in order to get by?
That is where a Bare Bones Budget comes in.
AND we have created a printable to help you make your own Bare Bones Budget. You can get it here!
Our family has had several instances where we have needed to cut back spending to just the necessities—during the pandemic in 2020, when my husband lost his job, when we moved for a new job but didn’t have an income yet.
Life happens, but knowing how much, exactly, we needed to keep surviving helped us to stress less during those times.
So today, I want to walk you through creating a Bare Bones budget for yourself, using the printable we made for this purpose.
The first part is to put in all of your bills that are necessary for living.
Think Rent/Mortgage, Utilities, Insurance, Internet, Phone, etc.
If you have subscriptions or non-essential kid expenses, leave those off.
Remember, we are working on NEEDS and what your family would need to survive for a month.
Next is to add in your variable expenses, but only the ones that are NEEDS.
Think Groceries, Gas, Medical expenses and maybe some extra buffer in a Miscellaneous category.
Then you need to put in any debt payments you have.
Unfortunately, creditors aren’t fond of getting paid randomly.
SO you need to account for the minimum payments of each debt that you have.
*Yes, you can call them and ask for some help if you are having an extended period of financial hardship. They might offer some help/leniency. It is always worth a shot. But for this printable, we want to make sure all our bases are covered.*
Now you need to add up the costs of all your Fixed Expenses, Variable Expenses and Debt Payments.
This total will let you know how much you need to live each month.
What can you do with this number?
Well, for starters, you can work to see if it is possible to lower that number at all.
Not everyone will need to, but if you have an expensive lifestyle and you don’t have the savings to back you up if something bad happens, you could be in for a rough time
But my favorite way to use this number is to use it to build a fully funded emergency.
Take your number and multiply by 3. That is how much you need for a 3 month emergency fund.
Note* This image is from our Emergency Fund Planner.
Want a 6 month emergency fund. Multiply your number by 6! And so on.
Once we knew our bare bones monthly number, we could finally plan for how much to save for our emergency fund.
We were no longer guessing, hoping we would save enough. We had solid numbers to back up our savings.
And that brought lots of peace of mind!
Final Thoughts on Bare Bones Budget Worksheet
Knowing your bare bones budget is vital to having success with your finances.
You can get a copy of this printable today and start figuring out your monthly number! Click Here!
Then you can work to bring even more stability and peace to your financial journey!
Happy Budgeting!