I Only Spend 10 Minutes a Month Managing My Money. Here’s How

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I’ve streamlined my money management process by automating as much as possible and simplifying my budget. Read on to learn how my techniques make life a lot easier. 

Managing money can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve got my financial affairs down to a science and I spend just 10 minutes a month managing my money.

Here’s how I made it happen, so I don’t really have to think about my personal finances for more than a few minutes a month.

I’ve automated almost everything I can

The single most important step I took to simplify the process of managing my money was automating every single thing I could.

I have set up:

Automatic mortgage paymentsAutomatic bill payments to all of my utility companies, my cellphone service provider, and other services I pay forAutomatic payments to my credit cards for the full balance that is dueAutomatic transfers to retirement accounts and savings accounts

All of this money comes out of my account when I get paid as soon as the money is deposited into my bank account. I just take a quick look to be sure the funds have been transferred where they need to go and that’s all I have to do.

By setting up automatic transfers, I am 100% confident that I’m on track with my savings, and I won’t ever miss a payment due to forgetting a deadline. I also don’t have to think about where the money should be going — it’s just delivered effortlessly where it needs to go.

Fortunately, this process is really easy. If you also want to automate everything, you can do so by using either your bank account’s bill payment and money transfer services or you can do it by signing into your credit card, utility companies, and investment accounts and arranging for them to auto-debit funds.

The only catch is you need to make sure you have the money in your account and don’t overdraft. If you can keep a bit of a financial cushion in your account — like around $500 to $1,000 — and you keep your fixed expenses reasonable, this shouldn’t be an issue. That’s the approach I’ve chosen to take to make sure my automations work smoothly.

I’ve opted for a simplified approach to budgeting

Another thing I’ve done is avoid making a detailed budget. Rather than allocating every single dollar that I spend — and tracking where my money goes to be sure I stay within budget — I simply follow a 50/30/20 budget instead.

With a 50/30/20 budget, I’ve kept my fixed expenses to 50% of my income. And I automatically save 20% of my money every month, with the funds moving to the appropriate places as part of my automation process. This means I know the remaining 30% is just there in my checking account ready to do what I want with it.

Since I don’t have to decide where every dollar goes, I don’t have to spend time budgeting. I also don’t really keep track of where exactly I’m spending the 30% any more. I just know that the money in my checking account is there and ready to be spent. I check my balance once in a while to make sure I’m not charging more on my credit cards during the month than I can pay off from the funds in my account. But I don’t have to think about my spending beyond that.

My system is really simple, and it’s also an effective way to make sure your money does what you need it to without much effort. If you want to spend only 10 minutes a month managing your own funds while still ensuring you’re making the right financial moves, you may want to consider adopting a 50/30/20 budget yourself and automating your savings and bill payments. That way, you can easily stick to this without any thought or time wasted.

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