There are some cases where absolutely-essential expenses may differ from person to person.

Everyone needs a place to live (rent/mortgage), a way to keep that place habitable (utilities), food (groceries), and water (duh). Step 3: Determine your absolutely-essentials expensesĪbsolutely-essential expenses are those things that you NEED to survive. Just like an ordinary budget, you need to know what money you have coming in. Success! Check your email to start budgeting! Step 2: List your income I’ll email you the Bare Bones Budget template / printable / worksheet (whatever you want to call it) when you enter your email in the box below.

Just follow the 5 simple steps below! Step 1: Download the Bare Bones Budget printable It’s pretty simple to create a bare bones budget.

You are in debt and desperate to be debt-free (personally, I don’t think that everyone in debt should be on a bare bones budget I needed some balance in my life so I was not on a bare bones budget when I was in six figures of student loan debt)īasically, you should be on a bare bones budget if you are in a financial situation where you don’t have enough money coming in or you have too much money (expenses) going out.

Your spending is out of control lately and you want to take some drastic steps.

You need/want to save money for something quickly.

You are in the negative each month your spend more than you make.

You can’t seem to crawl out of living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Here are some of the top reasons you might need to start living on a bare bones budget: There are many reasons you should consider ditching your regular budget and temporarily going on a bare bones budget. How do you know if you should be on a Bare Bones Budget? It’s temporary and typically used in special circumstances. It only includes your essential expenses. Read on! What is a Bare Bones Budget?Ī bare bones budget is a type of budget that identifies the least amount of money you need to spend each month to survive. If you are in a similar sticky financial situation, then it may be time for a bare bones budget. I just needed to make it to my internship when I would start getting a paycheck. I was lucky enough to have parents who gave me the money to carry me through the last few weeks of the term (and until my summer job started), but money was still very tight. I figured if I could walk around the block, look at ground, and double my bank account balance. It was nearing the end of the school year so the money I had made the previous summer had run out. My moment? I was in college, and I had 6 cents (yep, $0.06….1 nickel and 1 penny) in my bank account. Everybody’s had a need for a bare bones budget, whether they’ve recognized it or not. It’s a rite of passage into the wonderful world of adulthood. Everybody has gone through money struggles in their life.

How do you make a spreadsheet