How to make a budget for the new year

Tiffany Aliche, the Budgenista, joins TheStreet to share some tips on how to create your own personal budget for 2025.

Transcript

00:00So let's get right to it your name budget Nista, right? So give us the tips on how to budget

00:06What are the steps that we need to create a realistic budget?

00:11Well, especially now that the year has started

00:14I want you to first take stock of where are you when it comes to your finances? Do you still owe money?

00:20back from any sort of like holiday spending

00:23Are you behind or late on anything a budget really starts with taking stock of what's happening with your money currently?

00:30How much does your life cost you an average within a 30-day period of one month period?

00:35Write all of those things down what you pay for those things and start to ask yourself

00:39Do these numbers make sense? Do they reflect who I actually want to be? So that's definitely step one

00:44So now how can we do this without feeling guilty without feeling like it's a punishment?

00:52Honestly budgeting can feel like that. I like to think of a budget as my say yes plan

00:56You have to honestly like reconfigure the way you think about a budget that a budget is there like your mom, right?

01:03Your mom is not there to say no. She's there to say yes with a

01:07Framework that allows you to be safe. So you might say like mom. Can I have dessert?

01:11Yes after you eat your dinner mom. Could I go outside to play? Yes, if you do your homework

01:17Mom can I you know, go sleep over at my cousin's house?

01:20Yes

01:21When your grades are better if after when and your budget is there to say the same that it wants you to go on vacation

01:28After you save it wants you to buy that new coat when you've paid down some of your debt

01:34You know, it wants you to to plan for a big birthday party

01:40Yes, if you manage your budget

01:42See if when after and so that's the reconfiguring so I don't look at my budget as a

01:48Restrictive tool. It's a say yes plan. It's there to say yes to you, but keep you keep you financially safe

01:55So if we take a look at our say yes plan

01:57What are some of the adjustments that we all need to be making now that the new new year has begun?

02:05So like I said before right you're gonna list everything you kind of spend money on and what does it cost you monthly?

02:10But then I want you to categorize your budget, especially starting in the new year

02:14So you're gonna categorize your budget with what are your bills?

02:18These are things that if you don't pay someone's gonna come knocking

02:20right

02:21so you're gonna put a B next to that list that you just created or next to anything that's a bill and

02:26Then you're gonna look at those bills and say which one of these bills is based upon my usage like utilities, right?

02:33So you're gonna put a U next to any of those B's that are based upon how much you use it

02:38and that's what determines the amount of that bill and

02:41Anything left over that's not a B or UB is going to be a C a cash expense

02:47The C also stands for choices. And so it's a really great time to say now

02:51I'm going to start making adjustments to my budget and I start with my the places where I have the biggest choices

02:57I'm looking at all those C's to make adjustments there first at least on paper at first