Hello and welcome to the eleventh day of the June 30 days writing challenge. If you want to know all the details about this specific challenge, have a look at the introductory post. In short, I will be posting every day a short tip, or technique, or opinion, something that you can call a "life hack". Feel free to join the challenge and post your own life hacks. I will do my best to upvote each day at full strength (about $3 at the current STEEM price) 3 posts tagged #challenge30days (leaving a link to your posts in the comments will also help).

Set And Keep A Monthly Personal Expense Budget

I've been doing monthly budgets for my company for years. For ten years, to be more precise. Each month I had to carefully assess, predict and assign the company's financial workflow. So I kinda internalized the habit big time.

Probably because this was such a constant activity for my company, I almost completely ignored it for myself. But the truth is, because my company activity was so overwhelming, and I was identifying with it so much, I kinda blended my personal finances with the company finances. A rookie mistake, which proved to be quite expensive later on - but that's for another article.

After I sold my company and went all in as a digital nomad, I started to pay more attention to financial education (or personal financial education, to be more precise). In time, I learned that the most basic way of maintaining a heathy financial status was to just keep a monthly expense budget. It was bit difficult in the beginning, because I was so used to the formulas used in ( and I was having the expectations set in) my company, but eventually I forced my own model over it.

I now have a budget for every month, kept in a Google sheet. I usually copy the current month sheet as a template for the next month, as there aren't many variations month to month. It's basically 2 columns: Income and Expenses, which are summed vertically, then the difference between the two will give the month outcome. Lately, it started to be on the green, but it wasn't always like this.

It gives me a sense of clarity to keep this monthly budget, even if the numbers don't always add up. Just the mere fact that I have a clear picture of what lies in front of me is enough to make me more conscious about my finances.

It may seem like a boring life hack, but it's probably one of my top five, in terms of benefits.

I'm really curious to read about your life hack today. Leave a comment with a link to your post, if possible.

Previous Posts In The Challenge

• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Ten: Set A "Main Task" For Each Day
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Nine: Keep A Journal
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Eight: Keep An Activity Log
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Seven: Implement A New Habit With A 30 Days Challenge
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Six: Put It In Front Of The Door
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Five: The Pomodoro Technique
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Four: Keep A Clear Mind By Unloading Ideas Immediately
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Three: Intermittent Fasting
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Two: The "2 Minutes" Time Management Rule
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day One: Avoid Fighting With A Simple Visualization Technique
• Announcing The June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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