Avoid Budget Pitfalls with these Easy Scheduling Techniques (2024)

Overdraft fees piling up? Surprised by big bills? Struggling your way through the maze of bill pay each month? If you're falling victim to these budget pitfalls, here's my message:

You're not irresponsible. You're not terrible with money. You're not horrible at saving.

You just need a plan that gives you a timing advantage so you never have to pay overdraft fees or get surprised by big expenses ever again.

There are three main ways you can use scheduling to avoid budget pitfalls. Each technique uses scheduling to ensure you're paying things on time, paying the RIGHT bills at the right time, and thinking ahead to plan for expenses that derail you any given month.

And I'll even talk about a big-time technique that is super complicated BUT once it's set up you have automated your finances and set for life.

If you're following a Down-to-Zero budget system, you are already thinking about this. The key is all in the planning.

Each month, you get paid and you have bills to pay. And those things are not set up to automatically talk to each other well.

For instance, you are paid weekly or bi-weekly, but your bills are due monthly.

Here's how most people handle it:

I'm going to walk you through how to make sure you never miss a bill payment, and how a deliberate plan with a schedule can get you free from the monthly chaos of paying bills and avoid those budget pitfalls.

Why give the banks $15 billion dollars when a little calendaring can help you keep your money.

If you're being paid at predictable times during the month (like on the 15th and 30th) you should be able to assign each bill to its very own pay period.

Go through all the bills that occur BEFORE the first pay period of the month. Those need to be paid the prior month, so assign them to the pay period that happens mid-way through the month.

Make sure that which ever pay period you assign each bill to, it is occurring BEFORE the bill is due by at least 5 days.

So if your water bill is due on the 16th of every month and you get paid on the 1st and 15th, you should put the water bill in pay period 1.

One thing that can happen is that you realize you don't have enough money to live on with the expenses you have right now, In that case, you will have to re-evaluate your living situation, your job, or your spending.

Most likely, you need to fiddle around with the timing of your bill pay, savings, and debt repayment to match your pay periods. You might even discover you have MORE money than you thought, and that you can dedicate even more than you have been to savings and debt repayment.

I believe that this system can help you get honest about your finances, which should be the first thing you do in any kind of budget overhaul.

While you're at it, think about ALL the things you like to do every year that you don't pay for monthly.

Summer camp, yearly vacation, expensive travel during the holidays, birthday parties, and Christmas gifts. If you are spending big amounts of money on these things, consider adding them to your sheet.

One major budget pitfall is getting into the habit of putting celebrations and holiday expenses on the credit card. They seem necessary, and we have big expectations around this kind of spending. However, Christmas gifts and birthday celebrations put on the credit card mask the extravagance, allowing us to spend beyond our means without thinking about it. And then we pay interest on this spending for years to come.

Consider including your celebrations and vacations on this sheet too so you can truly calculate your yearly spending.

The blue sheet will give you the simple calculation to add up your expenses and divide them either by 12 (if you're paid monthly) or 24 (if you're paid bi-monthly).

That number is how much you should be saving every month to afford these big expenses every year.

Write those into your (color coded) Monthly Financial Report to see how that added expense affects your spending. Do you still have enough to live within your means?

Your goal isn't just to afford your lifestyle but to create a personal financial plan that allows you to meet all your financial obligations AND build for your future. That means paying down debt and saving for retirement, college, and emergencies.

I think the best way to do that, no matter your income level, is to make a Down-to-Zero budget, and I walk you though all the steps here. (Bonus: if you're using the sheets in this post, you're halfway to a Down-to-Zero budget already!)

A Down-to-Zero budget tricks you into spending less money because it designates all of your money to be used BEFORE it hits your account, and leaves you with just the money you need for daily spending.

The idea behind this kind of budget is that you trick yourself into spending less because you leave yourself less money to spend. You make decisions up front about how the money will get spent that month instead of leaving it to chance that you'll have some left over.

My planning sheets (get 'em all below!) help you map out how soon you'll get out of debt or have that emergency fund depending on how much you plan to save starting today.

No matter what budget type you choose, these sheets give you a good foundation for planning for your financial success.

If your bank account or your budget SAY you should be able to contribute to savings and retirement, but you just can't seem to build those accounts, then this plan is for you!

If you've downloaded the sheets and done the work to create a schedule that prevents you from missing payments or letting big bills derail you, there's a final step that can take your budget to the next level: automation.

When you automate your finances, you can ensure that your bills are paid and your goals are met...on autopilot.