Everyone loves tacos!
Soft tacos, crunchy tacos, meat tacos, veggie tacos, and even breakfast tacos! Tacos are cheap, quick, and easy. They’re also the perfect acronym for remembering the key components of building a financially free life.
When it comes to money, think TACOS.
TACOS– Take Action Contribute Often Save
Take Action
If you are trying to build a life in which your finances hum happily in the background while you enjoy the ride, you have to begin by taking action.
Build a Budget
Budgets get a bad rap of being super restrictive and a real buzz kill. But really, a budget is freedom!
A budget is breaking down where you want every one of your hard-earned dollars to go so that they can work best for you.
Assign each of your dollars a job:
- “You take care of living expenses like rent, utilities, and insurance.”
- “These guys are gonna handle retirement savings for our future”
- “This group is going to deal with kid’s expenses: sports, after-school care, and new clothes”
- “Everybody else, you’re coming with me to the grocery store!”
Actively assign each dollar a job, before you start spending. This can ensure you don’t let any of your hard little workers slip through the cracks on things like Target finds, gas station goodies or the latest gadget to pop up on your Insta feed. They won’t leave you wondering where all your money went at the end of the month.
Focus on Your Big 3- Housing, Transportation, and Food
The majority of every household budget is spent on the Big 3- Housing Transportation, and Food.
If cutting out lattes isn’t going to make a big enough change in your budget to help you build a financially secure life, it might be time to start making changes in your Big 3.
Housing
– Do you need to right-size your house? Is the mortgage or maintenance just more than you’re comfortable with? Maybe you need to move. Across town or across the country. Could you get a roommate or rent out a portion of your home? Opposed to what many may think, housing costs are not set in stone. Making changes to your housing is obviously a much larger decision than skipping a morning latte, but the payoff can be HUGE.
Transportation
- That fancy car may look really nice in the driveway, but is your car payment causing you financial stress? Is the horrible gas mileage of your Turbo V8 upping your fuel costs by hundreds of dollars a month? It might be time to take action and make a change. Sell the car and figure out what you really need. Yeah, a Honda Fit might not be as fun to drive as your Subaru WRX, but if it means having money left over at the end of the month, it could be worth it.
Food
– We love food! Heck, this entire blog is named after our love of tacos. But if we’re not careful, the food budget can easily get out of hand. Takeout, restaurants, gourmet groceries. If we’re not careful, our food spending can easily surpass our housing expenses. This is something Mr. Bean and I have totally been guilty of.
Ditch the delivery, learn to cook some basic foods at home, and plan out some meals for the week. Just these simple actions can cut hundreds, if not thousands off of many people’s food budgets.
Increase Your Income
Sometimes, building budgets and cutting expenses can only take you so far. If your paycheck is just plain too low, start taking action to increase your income.
- Get extra training or skills
- Job hop to a position that will pay you better
- Take on a part-time job or side hustle to bring in extra income temporarily when doing things like paying off debt, saving for a downpayment, or planning a big vacation or wedding.
- Start making connections with people who can guide you
Grumbling and complaining about a low paycheck or crappy work/life balance won’t change anything, sometimes you just have to suck it up and make a change.
Contribute Often
Contributing often is all about taking big huge goals, and breaking them down into little manageable pieces.
Needing $2 million to retire is a huge goal! But if you break it down into smaller biweekly contributions over time, it can actually become manageable. The same goes for emergency funds, expected expenses accounts, and more.
Contribute to 401k
Contribute to your 401k or other employer-sponsored retirement plans each and every check. Even if it’s just the minimum required to get your full employer match. Invested over time, those contributions can grow to big money to better secure your future.
Contribute to Emergency Fund
Contribute to your Emergency Fund, every paycheck, until it is at the level you’re comfortable with. For some people it is 3 months’ worth of living expenses, for others it’s a year’s worth. It all depends on your specific life situation.
Contribute to Expected Expenses
Contribute to your Expected Expenses Accounts. All those little “emergencies” that pop up in life usually aren’t emergencies at all. They’re something you could have seen coming and planned for.
Annual car registration, basic veterinary care, your hot water heater breaking. All these things that can destroy a budget if not planned for are totally expected!
If you have a car, you’re gonna need to register it, every time. It will need new tires regularly too.
If you have a pet, they’re going to need basic medicines and/or check-ups.
Home appliances break. And kids flush rubber duckies down toilets.
Figure out how much you can expect to pay for each of these expected expenses, divide it by 12 and make sure to put that much away every month in a high-yield savings account.
Other things to contribute to are:
- IRAs for personal retirement savings
- 529s, UTMAs, or Custodial Accounts for Kids
- Brokerage accounts for long-term savings goals or Financial Independence
Plan for your future, break it down into manageable amounts, and contribute often. Make everything automatic and before you know it, your small contributions will add up to an amazing financial life.
Save
Saving has so many different meanings, but each of them is important for building a financially free life.
- Save for your dreams- vacations, kitchen updates, house downpayment. Dream big, figure out how much it will take, and break it down into manageable chunks. When you’ve reached your goal, pay for it in CASH and bask in the glow of what you’ve accomplished without going into debt.
- Save on purchases to keep costs down and avoid unnecessary debt or “convenience” prices.- Meal plan to keep food costs down. Create a holiday budget and shopping list ahead of time to find the best deals. Realize when your car is on its last leg and start saving up and shopping around so you are ready to get the best deal when the time comes.
With just a little bit of planning, you can save so much money, time, and hassle.
TACOS- Take Action Contribute Often Save
So much goodness in a simple, yummy food. When you’re trying to build a financially free life just remember:
When it comes to money, think TACOS.
Make sure to share your favorite articles with your friends and family. Leave a comment below and tell me about your favorite TACOS.
1 thought on “When It Comes To Money, Think TACOS”