Budgeting is a skill that many people spend years trying to master, and it’s one that we recommend you work on for your whole life. It helps us grow financially and emotionally.
But it cannot be apparent! There are so many types of budgets. What should we use? What if the goal of our budget is different from the goals of others?
Here are four types of budgets to help you start setting up your reasonable budget.
1. Asset Management Budget
An Asset Management budget is your most crucial category because it’s not a cash account. It’s an asset that grows over time and lasts for a long time.
In this budget, you make money every time you buy something for no cash. You pay with your assets, and you get to keep the assets that produced the money. That’s asset management. This is a fantastic way to save because you’ll build up your wealth by doing nothing but buying from yourself.
2. Cash Management Budget
This budget tracks your cash as you spend it on things that produce money immediately—things that cost real cash and bring in real-time income.
This budget is an essential tool for our society because it’s how we pay for things that we’d otherwise have to delay or skip. It’s how we get the things we need and keep our cash management healthy.
3. Emergency Fund Budget
An emergency fund is a savings account for your real problems. You can’t solve all of life’s problems with a single budget, so you will likely continue to develop different budgets as you grow older. But if you’ve got an emergency fund committed to spending discipline, then you’ll always have money stored up when times are tight (which means less stress when the time comes).
4. Sneaky Spending Tactics Budget
Yes, we have a budget for those sneaky spending tactics! It doesn’t get any better than free things, so you can use your budget to move money from your other budgets back into this one every time you find a new way to get stuff for free.
Summary
Each of these four budgets in a different way to think about different types of money. That’s why we recommend that you set up a budget for each one and then use the other three classes to get an even better handle on your finances.