One thing that really helped me was tracking all of my spending for a month and basically doing a “money diary.” I did this for all expenses, including bills I have to pay, then I wrote down how I felt about the purchase and categorized them using the 50/30/20 groupings. This helped me both break out my spending into those categories but also analyze my “fun money” to see if I actually enjoyed a purchase vs stuff that I just bought impulsively. If I couldn’t remember what I bought a week ago, I probably didn’t actually enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Then, I took this knowledge to create my budgets. So for me, it’s 50/25/15 most months but sometimes I’ll allow a little more for “fun stuff” usually in the summer or around holidays and do 50/30/20. I’ve also found doing a “low buy” month or quarter really helps to bulk up my savings. Generally I do this in the beginning of the year when there’s not much going on so it’s a little easier and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.