How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Save Money

1. Pick a financial system

Different systems work for different families, so find one that works for yours. You could use the envelope system, have a paper budget, maybe use Excel, or even a whiteboard. It’s not important which system you use, as long as it works for you.

We have a paper budget that I made in Excel. We have all our receipts on the side of the fridge with a magnet. After we buy something, we put our receipt on the side of the refrigerator with a magnet.

Then I input it into the budget and put a checkmark on the receipt when I'm done. After that, I throw it in a bin we keep on top of the fridge. This way if we ever need a receipt again, we know where it is.

2. Manage your money together

If you are married, it’s easiest to manage your money together. This means everyone has access to every account and every credit card. Manage your money together as one unit.

Me and my husband manage our money together. If I forget a bill, my husband can easily get into the account, and pay that bill. He knows where everything is, and there's nothing hidden.

Let me know in the comments if you are married and have all of your financial accounts merged. Can everyone get into everything, or do you have some separation?

3. Set times to work on your budget

If you have no deadline and leave yourself all Saturday afternoon to mess around with the budget you will not work as effectively. Before you know it, you'll have spent all afternoon messing around with the budget.

Set aside half an hour or less, to work on your budget. This will help you move through it quicker and with more efficiency.

4. Assign money tasks

My husband has money tasks and I have money tasks. This way we share the burden. We each have our own assignments. He pays the bills like the power bill. When the power bill comes, I don’t need to pay it because I know he's going to do that. This saves us from potential confusion.

Make a list of all the money tasks that you wish were getting done. Then you and your spouse can sit down and divvy them up. Everyone pitches in and has their own responsibilities.

5. Automate bills and investments

One of my husband's assigned tasks is to pay bills like car insurance, phone bill, power bill, and things like that. One of the ways he saves time is by automating those bills.

This way, he just needs to check and confirm that the payment went through. He doesn’t have to worry about inputting information or going to the websites every single time he needs to pay the bill. It's already set up and ready to go. That saves him a lot of time.

We also automate some amount of investing. We have an automatic investment into our Roth IRA. It's automatically withdrawn from our account and in the budget, so we've already set that money aside from the paycheck.

Even if we spend unexpected amounts of money on things like moving or renovating our Airbnb, we are still automatically investing every single month without exception.

6. Don’t count other people’s money

Don't spend too much time worrying about the progress of other people. It's great to be inspired by others, but it can make you feel lousy to constantly compare. There will always be someone with more and that might make you feel less than.

Everybody's circumstances are different. Everybody has a different set of financial restraints on them. Celebrate your own wins and your own progress. If you are moving towards your goals, celebrate that. Don't compare that to how someone else met their goals.

7. Give yourself an allowance

Allow yourself to afford things that you enjoy. This might seem counterproductive but hear me out. Anything that's too restrictive, like a diet, a budget, or a workout plan, is going to be difficult to stick to for very long. If your budget is too extreme and doesn’t allow for any pleasure, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

For us, this means that my husband and I both get money every single month to spend on whatever we want.

Even if you can only afford $30 or $20 a person, you need to allow yourself some guilt-free cash. It will enable you to feel like you have the power to do things that you want to do. Even a small amount of money will give you a little bit more freedom.

You need joy in your life. You need a little bit of freedom in your life to keep yourself in good spirits and keep you on a path that will help bring you closer to your financial dreams. The last thing I would want you to do is give up on your budget and throw it in the trash.

We also allow ourselves money for vacations and time away. I highly recommend this. It doesn't have to be a big expensive trip.

It could be a trip to go see your family and relax at their place. It could be a camping trip. You don’t have to blow a ton of money to have a meaningful getaway. It’s important to incorporate fun and pleasure into your budget to maintain quality of life.

How to simplify your financial life and save money

These tips help us stay committed to our financial goals while continuing to enjoy life. What did I miss? What do you do that helps simplify your financial life? Let me know in the comments section.