Ya’ll, I get excited every pay week to sit down and determine how I plan to spend my upcoming paycheck before it hits the bank. It is exciting to see how close I am getting to reaching my financial goals. I got the idea to share my paycheck breakdown from Pennies Not Perfection on Youtube. On her channel, she shares her financial journey of paying down student loans, the process of refinancing her house, and how she has chosen to invest. So I am going to take a page out her book and share my numbers (or percentages).
Step 1: Estimate Income
Every pay period, I estimate what my paycheck will be. My pay at my full-time job varies occasionally because I am an hourly employee and my pay for my part-time job fluctuates constantly based on the hours I receive. With that in mind, I always round down when estimating my income. This helps me to ensure that the numbers work and if I do happen to make more money I will either transfer that money directly to my savings or add funds to the figures I have already created.
For the intents of this post, I will depict paycheck as a 100%.
Step 2: Allocating My Paycheck
Once I have estimated my income, the fun part begins. I then determine how I want to allocate my funds. The first part of my process is to pay my bills and any other items I consider essential. Once I have allocated those things, then I divide the rest of my funds amongst my savings goals and my discretionary spending. I typically allocate to my discretionary fund because I have a specific dollar amount that I allocate there. Then whatever is left will go to my various savings goals.
My 2nd paycheck of the month always goes to my rent but I do have a few other expenses to pay for as well. I will show you in the graph below.
June Paycheck #2 Breakdown
| Estimated Income | 100% |
| Essentials | |
| Rent | 74.09% |
| Gas | 1.62% |
| Personal Care | 3.23% |
| Groceries | 4.52 |
| 83.46% | |
| 16.54% | |
| Savings | |
| Card Debt Repayment | 16.54% |
This monthly breakdown was pretty simple. I am doing a no-spend month, so no money was allocated to discretionary spending. Also, with my prior paycheck I was able to reach my savings goals so I am going to use the additional money remaining to pay towards my car. This is great because it should push me to edge of paying my car off by August like I anticipated.
How do you breakdown your budget?