The Anti-Budget Explained: Automate Your Way to Savings Goals
By: Frankie Calkins
Tags: Anti Budget, Money Management, Budget, Budgeting, Save Money

The Anti-Budget Explained: Automate Your Way to Savings Goals

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

I once called budgets no-fun finger-wagging fear-inducing jump-scare nightmares. Good in theory, bad in practice. The fastest way to lose friends is to tell people to budget and rant about why it’s so important.

I get it. Budget work for some people. If that’s you, great. I’m not here to bash budgets by any means.

But for me, they don’t work. They’re quite time-consuming, and they make me feel like a slave to my spreadsheet. Plus, the guilt with any dollar I spend… I just, I can’t even.

Instead, I anti-budget. Which means I don’t budget. I do two things instead:

1. I automate my saving and investing.

2. I sit down once a year and project my spending for the year ahead. Specifically, I call it my “save half plan” because save and invest half, retire twice as fast I always say.

THE POINT OF BUDGETING

Let’s cut to the chase: The point of budgeting is to get more responsible with your money so you can save. The point is to hold onto more of it. You do this by increasing your savings rate over time and setting goals.

But if saving as the goal is the purpose, you can do that with an anti-budget by paying yourself first, automatically. You can automate your way to goals, no matter how small or large.

I don’t budget day to day or week to week. I pay myself first by sending money to my investments and savings goals, and I use the rest to pay my bills and spend guilt-free.

MY $45,000 ANTI-BUDGET SAVINGS PLAN

Each year in January, I figure out exactly how much money I’d need to set aside each paycheck to max out my 401(k). I enter that exact dollar amount in my retirement portal. I do the same for my HSA.

I also automatically transfer $250 each week to my Roth IRA, and it gets automatically invested into a total stock market index fund without fees via M1 Finance.

From there, I transfer $1,000 in cash once a month to my online-only high-interest savings account. This is cash I’ll eventually use to make a lump sum payment towards my student loans or as a downpayment on a house.

My annual cash savings goal is $15,000. When my funds are a little higher than usual and all my credit cards have been paid to zero, I’ll occasionally toss another $500 into saving. That part is manual, but it beats manual spreadsheets and constant manual transfers.

By maxing out my 401(k), HSA, and Roth IRA, I’m able to save and invest over $29,100 annually (and yes, you can invest HSA money, which is something most people don’t know about).

Source: The Money Resolution (YouTube)

If I achieve my $15,000 cash saving, I nearly achieve my $45,000 save and invest annual goal. If I did nothing else financially, besides continuing to pay off my credit cards in full, I’m crushing it.

That’s my anti-budget automatic save half plan so I can eventually buy back my time and retire early. It’s the whole essence of the third book I’m working on and my YouTube channel.

Bonus Rule: I bank 90% of any new or unexpected money — think bonus or raise. That’s a non-negotiable. I like rules like this much more than tracking every dollar by category daily or weekly.

LOW BALANCE ALERT

At any given moment, my personal bank savings and checking accounts are each under $500. I call this “living on the edge” financially. I know I’m not on the brink of being dead broke, but keeping a low balance visibly is that subtle reminder I need to remember that money is tight.

Believe it or not, I’m happy when I receive a low-balance email notification from my bank. It means I’m doing it right. Money is tight because I choose for it to be. I put my money to work automatically, rather than sit idle in a bank losing value due to inflation.

It’s not a low-balance notification. It’s a high savings rate and investing notification. It’s my dollars building an army of dollars.

TAKE EMOTION OUT OF IT

The anti-budget removes emotions. It removes negative emotions when it comes to budgeting and decision-making emotions when it comes to saving.

The anti-budget is a once-a-year, emotionless plan. Set the plan in motion. Hit your goals automatically. Enjoy life more.

Okay, there are some emotions — happiness and zen.

The beauty in the anti-budget is that you get to spend the rest of the money freely, without guilt after you cover your expenses.

Pro Tip: If you want to save up for a specific purchase, create another bank account within your main account and set up an automatic transfer as well to automate your way to a smaller goal.

FOCUS ON INCOME

Since I don’t have to budget, I have earned time back. With that time, I use it to side hustle and build different streams of passive income. You can only save so much money as a percentage of your income. But your income earning potential is unlimited.

Be anti-budget and use that extra time to earn more income. That’s a financial win-win. Actually, it’s a win-win-win if you save and invest 90% of new money beyond your main income. That’s the strategy I’ve used to turn my financial life around.

The only downside as a writer and YouTuber is my plan is so simple I sometimes run out of fresh ways to talk money week to week. Why did you think I recently performed a finance spoken word poem?!

One caveat: If you are struggling to cover your bills or you have bad debt piling up, I don’t recommend this anti-budget system. I would strongly consider a full budget to get back on your feet. Or, consider a service like YNAB or Dave Ramsay’s system.

If this idea is new to you and saving half of your income is literally impossible, start by saving 20% as a goal. From there, aim to up your savings by 1% monthly. For example, if you earn $5,000 a month, 1% is $50. Increase your savings amount by $50 each month.

MY ANNUAL PLANNER

The most downloaded free resource I offer is my annual budget planner, or rather my “anti-budget planner”. Watch this YouTube video sharing how I use it myself and make yourself a copy!

It’s worth noting, it doesn’t need to be early January to create an annual plan. You can create a 365-day plan any day of the year.

WRAP UP

That’s the anti-budget. It’s automation and paying yourself first. It’s that simple. You can hit your savings rate goal with a once-a-year sitdown and by taking the time to set up your automatic savings and investing.

When most people see extra cash in their savings account, they spend it. We’re all human and dopamine is a hell of a drug. If you set up your financial savings plan similar to mine, you don’t need the willpower to hit your savings goals.

The anti-budget is anti-splurge. It’s anti-lifestyle creep. It’s responsible. It’s hand-off. It’s stress-free. And it works. At least for me…

Let me know what your method of budgeting is. Do you track every dollar? Do you anti-budget and you didn’t realize it. Do you implement a hybrid of the two? I’d love to know so please do share your method.

Otherwise, best of luck breaking up with your emotional budget bully.