13 Money Planners To Prioritize Your Budget Right Now
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Figuring out where your money goes and how to allocate your paycheck can be daunting. We often find ourselves channeling an “ignorance is bliss” mindset when it comes to our checking accounts and credit card statements. However, keeping yourself in the dark when it comes to money can cause more harm than good. While it can be temporarily fun to go on shopping sprees and blow through your entertainment budget twice over, doing so can cause you to accumulate insurmountable debt.
Instead of letting your money run your life, take control of your financial health and create a budget that you’ll actually follow.
The Importance of Budgeting
A well-planned budget provides a roadmap for managing and allocating your financial resources. Budgets help you get to your money–you’ll gain a better understanding of your earnings and expenses, including bills, groceries, and entertainment. Having a budget in place helps you to prioritize your spending based on your goals. If you’re saving for a new car, a vacation, or a new device, following a budget can help you get there.
There are several budgeting tools available to help you get started, including, but not limited to, finance-focused planners. Whether you’re new to budgeting or you’re a seasoned professional, the best budget planners can help you keep track of your cash flow and take control of your finances.
The Best Budget Planners To Get You Started
Price Reference (average price):
$ | Under $30
$$ | Between $30-$60
$$$ | More than $60
Image: Ivory Paper Co.
12-Month Budget Planner
Ivory Paper Co.
Price: $$
Spiral-bound with silver protective edges that lend a chic (and functional) finish to your budgeting, this 12-month money planner helps you take control of your finances through its expansive collection of sections, including: a page to jot down your annual finance goals, planning pages to help you brainstorm new ways to earn extra cash and reduce expenses, a subscription tracker, and monthly or weekly budget pages to break down each paycheck!
Why We Love It: Its undated format allows you to use it at your own pace, making it perfect for beginners learning to habitually budget.
Image: Erin Condren
Budget Planner Bundle
Erin Condren
Price: $
Who doesn’t love a bundle? Make your budgeting routine a more exciting experience with this collection featuring a budget planner, dual-tip markers, and a sticker book. The metallic planner includes trackers to help you watch your spending and saving habits, as well as special occasions such as birthdays and holidays. It also includes quarterly finance check-ins, so you can see your progress throughout the year.
Why We Love It: It includes an entire sticker book with a blend of playful and functional finance-themed stickers to make planning your budget more fun.
Image: Amazon
Rosy Budget Book
Tullofa
Price: $
Adorned with rose illustrations that bring an air of elegance to your stationery collection, this budget book includes monthly calendars to note special dates and when bills are due, along with templates to track your expenses and plan your financial goals and strategies. It also features Monthly and Yearly Summary pages that let you analyze your income, savings, and expenses from the entire year.
Why We Love It: This hardcover budget planner features a section dedicated to mapping out your holiday budget so that you can prevent overspending during the season.
Image: Etsy
Reusable Money Planner
Crossbow Planner Co
Price: $
A finance planner that looks so sophisticated you’ll be eager to begin budgeting and saving! This simple and straight-forward budget planner begins with a short guide to prepare you for your financial journey ahead, as well as classic money tracking pages, monthly budgets, expense trackers, and a checklist to remind you of your recurring bills. And the best part? It’s refillable so you can reuse it every year!
Why We Love It: Each monthly review page features sections to highlight the total amount of money you saved and the total debts you paid off. Although minute, this little detail reminds us to celebrate each win.
Image: Etsy
Digital Budget Planner
Luminova Planners
Price: $
The perfect planner for the tech savvy budgeters, this digital finance tracker features a minimalist design aesthetic that’s not only beautiful, but practical, too. Its thoughtfully created layout includes weekly and monthly money trackers, space to write down your goals and plans, fund sheets, and more. To easily navigate between each section, you can simply use the hyperlinked index!
Why We Love It: It includes a section dedicated to money-themed challenges to help make saving more fun! For example, after you add $5 to your piggy bank, you can color in a heart until you’ve reached $500 saved.
Image: Amazon
Budget Binder & Money Holder
SKYDUE
Price: $
Utilizing the traditional money-saving envelope method, this petite binder is equipped with eight durable envelopes to store your cash and coupons for each spending category, from your groceries to your pets. It includes labels to designate each envelope to your budget categories and 12 budget pages to track your expenses and withdrawals.
Why We Love It: Its petite size can fit in most handbags so you can use it as a wallet, too.
Image: Amazon
Budget Planner & Monthly Bill Organizer
Lamare
Price: $
A planner that helps you to visualize where your money is actually going, this budget book offers space to create graphs to see where you’re spending the most money, as well as diagrams to track how much you’re saving and how close you are to reaching your financial goals.
Why We Love It: It has inspirational quotes spread throughout, so if your financial journey gets rough, you’ll have a reminder to keep going.
Image: Happy Planner
Classic Guided Budget Journal
The Happy Planner
Price: $
An eye-catching money journal adorned with vibrant flowers, this planner offers ample space to track your cash and journal your thoughts and feelings. It features monthly overviews to plan for the month ahead, detailed breakdowns to plan your budget, and weekly expenses to track your wants, needs, and bills. This journal also incorporates guided prompts to help strengthen your relationship with money and practice gratitude.
Why We Love It: It has challenge pages to inspire you to cut out frivolous purchases for a month (one of the most difficult tasks in the eyes of a former book-buying fiend).
Image: Free People
Financial Health Planner
Papier
Price: $
Complete with playful graphics at the front and back, this finance planner has almost all the tools that you need to start taking control of your money. With four informative articles from finance expert, Elle Harikleia, you can grow and adapt your money mindset. It also includes a prior year review (as well as six- and twelve-month), so that you can analyze your spending habits, and begin planning how you’re going to evolve your financial journey.
Why We Love It: It’s sustainably made from paper that’s been ethically sourced from forests!
Image: Etsy
Minimalist Budget Planner Bundle
Minimalistic Budget
Price: $
An elegant monthly budget planner, this book is filled with templates to help you evaluate your money in every way. Filled with breakdown pages dedicated to bills, paychecks, and cash, as well as debt and savings trackers, this planner helps ensure no stone is left unturned when you’re budgeting each month.
Why We Love It: It includes a Cash Breakdown section to keep track of every withdrawal coming out of your bank account. Say goodbye to girl math and keep an eye on your cash!
Image: Etsy
Spiral Budget Planner
Journals Everything
Price: $
A straight-forward and easy-to-follow option, each month in this planner features a two-page spread to give you space to track your monthly budget and expenses. In these pages, you can monitor bill due dates, how much you’ve budgeted for each expense, and how much you actually spent on each.
Why We Love It: It’s available in eight different colors and patterns so you can choose a style that fits your personal aesthetic.
Image: Etsy
Printable Paycheck Budget Planner
Akiras Digitals
Price: $
Perfect for digital or physical use, this printable budget offers a detailed template to guide you through your planning. With a simple, impactful design, this template gives you space to budget for your bills, cash envelopes, and debts, as well as your sinking (and saving) funds.
Why We Love It: A one-and-done purchase, this downloadable PDF can be used again and again at no additional cost to you.
Image: Etsy
Google Sheets Budget Planner
The Productive Plans
Price: $
If you’re a fiend for Google Sheets and Excel, this digital budget tracker is the solution for you. Complete with a colorful and sophisticated design that makes budgeting a more thrilling adventure, this planner automatically calculates your budget and what you actually spend, while giving you space to create financial plans based on weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or paycheck-driven schedules.
Why We Love It: It automatically generates charts and graphs based on your spending so you can see how much money you spend in each category.
Taking control of your finances can be an overwhelming task, but creating a budget that’s fit for your lifestyle can help you save for the things you want and need, while also giving you peace of mind by preparing for unexpected expenses.
