I Will Teach You To Be Rich: No guilt, no excuses - just a 6-week programme that works

by Ramit Sethi

1 Get your salary, determine what you’ve been spending and figure out what your Conscious Spending Plan should look like (30 minutes). Do this now and don’t overthink it. Just break your take-home income into chunks of fixed costs (50–60%), long-term investments (10%), savings goals (5–10%), and guilt-free spending money (20–35%). How does it fit? 2 Optimise your spending (2 hours). Dig deeper into your savings goals and monthly fixed costs. Try the À La Carte Method. How much does your insurance actually cost – can you improve on that? How much will you spend on Christmas gifts and a vacation this year? Break these expenses down into monthly chunks, then recalculate your plan. 3 Pick your Big Wins (5 hours). Open an account at You Need a Budget. Assuming you want to cut your spending by £200/month, what one or two Big Wins will you target? Start using the envelope system. 4 Maintain your Conscious Spending Plan (1 hour per week). Enter any cash receipts into your system each week. Tweak the percentages you send to each part of your spending plan (we’ll cover this in detail in the next chapter). And most important, make sure your system is realistic enough that you’ll stick with it for the long term.