The Bullet Journal Financial Spread

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One of the best parts of a bullet journal is the ability to keep all sorts of things in one place. From notes and calendars to trackers of every sort. Some of the best habits to track in your bullet journal has to be your financial ones. Mastering your spending can lead to all sorts of goodness so here are some ideas for finding the bullet journal financial spread for you.

What are you trying to accomplish?

We’re all at different places in our financial journeys. Which means that we have different financial goals. Maybe you’re saving for a trip, a car, or good ol‘ retirement. Maybe you just got a promotion and don’t know why you still feel like you’re flat broke. You could just want to increase you awareness surrounding your money habits.

You might be starting a side hustle (if it’s online or blogging check out my resource page). With that you’ll want to keep track of revenue, expenses and promotions.

Defining what you use your money on and what you want be using your money for can make a big difference in the type of financial spread or trackers you’ll want to have in your journal.

So what is it you want to accomplish?

Keeping track of Expenses

Sometimes keeping it simple pays. Literally. Just having somewhere to write down how much you’re spending and on what can shed some much needed light. After you know what you’re spending on you can make changes after all.

This financial spread has a section for monthly reoccurring fees so you know what you’re musts are. There is also a spot for your as-you-go spending. With this you can see if there were emergencies, unaccounted for spending or maybe even a little impulse shopping.

This spread is open for whatever you need. It was formulated as a business expense tracker for an independent contractor. They can write in their business expenses and the category it falls into with the amount beside the description. This makes tax season a bunch more straight forward!

• Related: 7 Bullet Journal Trackers You’ll Actually Use
• Related: Self Care in Your Bullet Journal

Saving for Something Special

We all know that we should treat savings like a bill. And if there is a quote that I want to live by more it would be Robert Kiyosaki’s “Pay yourself first”. Labeling your savings can do tons to add motivation to systematically adding to those accounts.

This spread is great since it lists all the things the creator is saving up for. She’s super specific and you can see how close she is to hitting certain savings goals. Visual representations like this are awesome since they really incentivize you to add to your account and fill up those bars.

Here’s another savings financial spread that has specific things that are being saved for. These graphs also have a clear starting point and increments listed to make it easy to see how close you are to your savings goal.

Bills, Bills, Bills

We all have them so we might as well track them so we know what’s going on. If we know when certain bills go up we can be proactive about calling to inquire about price increases, look at ways to save energy, or change habits that are becoming costly.

I love this spread. The graph format makes it easy to see trends in your utility spending allowing you to accurately budget or figure out why you’re spending more or less than usual. So helpful.

Here is an amazing spread that takes everything into consideration. Hayden breaks bills down into categories depending on the frequency of payments making them easy to track. There is also space for the amount, the due date and to check off when you paid it. So organized! You can tell she’s an engineer.

• Related: Creating a Useful Chores Tracker
• Related: How to Set Up a Bullet Journal

All Together

Sometimes we just want everything to be in one place. Here are two very different examples of financial spreads that track a variety of aspects all together.

This spread is a monthly budget that has space for all your monthly spending. You list your income, your usual expenses then there is a large space to write out day to day spending.

If you take the time to write out everything you spend on you become so much more aware of where your money goes. With that awareness, you can make changes if you find yourself overspending in certain categories.

This is the annual financial tracker that I added to my 2019 bullet journal. I started out with a line graph where I can track my monthly revenue for my blog and the monthly income I’m actually “taking home”. I also have a column for a savings goal.

On the other page is where I’m going to add in potential income earning projects or promotions I’m planning on running or participating in. With all my contributing factors listed together I should be able to stay on track!

Hitting your financial goals

The first step to hitting your money goals is to know what you’re making and what you’re spending. A good bullet journal financial spread will make it so much easier to increase your awareness. Tracking expenses and setting financial goals will set you on the path to achieving them.

Some banks have apps you can link to your debit and credit cards and can give you a break down of what you’re spending. If your bank offers something like that, download it! It will make it easy to transfer your spending over at the end of the day.

By knowing what you’re doing you can set achievable goals and adapt your strategy so that you stay in your budget or increase your income if you work at it.