Tipped: The life changing guide to financial freedom for waitresses, bartenders, strippers, and all other service industry professionals

by Barbara Sloan

Future spending is anything that helps Future

Even if you don’t have anything to list under this column yet, it’s important to list it anyway, acknowledge that it needs to be a part of your budget, and recognize you will be allocating future dollars here.

essential category is helpful because it shows us how low our spending can get should we need to pull back to the bare minimum.

lifestyle category means you are including choice into your life.

The future category means you are including security into your life.

Fixed expenses are those that stay the same every month, such as rent. Non-fixed or variable expenses are those you anticipate but vary in cost or frequency.

Padding the account would mean I budget for $100 per month, but I preload the account with $600 extra to cover the fluctuations of the summer months. Rounding up would mean I budget for $150 a month during the winter so that by the time I get to summer, there is enough in the account to cover the additional charges.