SLC32-W2 || Real Life Problem Solving Challenge: Budget Planning

Greetings to everyone in the Steem for Pakistan community!

Honestly I used to laugh at the idea of budgeting. Me, a student with small income, doing budget planning? For what exactly? Money enters, money goes, next month we try again. That was genuinely how I was thinking for a long time and I am not even ashamed to say it because I think plenty of people around me was thinking the same thing. But something changed this year and this week challenge is the perfect place to talk about it.

^{Edited with PixelLab}

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How do you plan your weekly or monthly budget? Explain well.

My income is monthly, from my IT Program as a student currently, plus sometimes freelance work lands on top of that. The salary I can predict, the freelance I cannot, so my whole budget is built on the salary only. Freelance money is not counted anywhere in my plan until it physically enters my account.

When salary comes in the very first thing I do is move 15% into savings. Not after I buy data. Not after I sort out feeding for the week. The savings leaves first, and then I plan what to do with the rest.

What remains after savings I split across six things.

• 30% goes to feeding because food is not optional and I have tried to cut it before and it just made everything miserable.
• Transport gets 15%, that is keke and bus fares going to the IT office and anywhere else I need to be.
• Internet and data takes 10% because without data I cannot do my freelance work so that one is practically the same as a salary deduction in my head.
• Upkeep is another 10%, that covers toiletries and anything personal care related.
  -Then I keep 10% untouched for emergencies because something unexpected always happens in Nigeria, it is not if, it is when.
  -Last 10% is for airtime and random personal spending.

When freelance money comes in I split it differently. 40% goes to savings immediately, 30% I set aside for skill building and future tools, and 30% is extra money I can spend more freely. The reason I do it this way is so I never start depending on freelance income to cover basic things and then get stranded when a client is slow to pay.

^{Me dropping from motorcycle at my place of work, and getting snacks during the day}

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What tool or method do you use to track your expenses? Show at least one tool or method in detail with a selfie.

I use Notion for this and I built the whole system myself from scratch this week actually.

The page is called Personal Budget Plan 2026 and it has everything in one place. There is a main page showing all my percentage rules and a savings goal section, and inside it I built a full expense tracker database where I log each thing I spend money on with the category, the amount, the budget limit for that category, the date, and a status that shows if I am within budget or getting too close.

It also has a board view where expenses are grouped by category so I can see visually which bucket is filling up fastest in a given month, and a spending chart view showing the breakdown as a donut chart. Looking at my June entries right now I can see transport went slightly over in weeks one and two, feeding for week two was a bit higher than planned because I bought extra provisions. Small things but the fact that I can see them means I can adjust for the rest of the month before it becomes a real problem.

I chose Notion because I already use it every day for my work and study tasks, so the budget is literally right there in the same place I check my other responsibilities. A separate app I knew I would forget about after three days.

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What are the unnecessary expenses that affect your income? Explain.

Two things have been eating my money more than anything else.

First one is buying extra data. I have a monthly bundle but I always exhaust it before month end because of things I was not even being intentional about. Long video sessions, leaving background apps running, downloading stuff I never use. Then I buy another small bundle which takes money from somewhere else in the budget.

Second is what I started calling "tired spending." When I finish a long day at the office and I am tired, I just stop at a vendor and buy food instead of doing something cheaper. One time is fine, but when it is happening four or five times in a week that is real money walking out quietly. A ₦700 plate here, ₦500 there, by end of week I have spent maybe ₦3,000 extra on food alone above what I already budgeted.

POS withdrawal charges are also something I started noticing after I began tracking properly. Those small ₦50 and ₦100 charges add up across a whole month in a way that is surprisingly annoying when you actually see the total.

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How do you save money from your income that will sustain you for future hardships?

The 15% that leaves immediately when salary enters is not savings I am planning to spend next month. That is money I am trying not to touch unless something serious happen.

For freelance income the 40% that goes to savings is kept in a separate mental account from my regular savings. One of them I am building toward having enough to cover three months of my basic expenses in case income ever stops or reduces suddenly. The other is growing toward buying tools or investing in something for my freelance business later.

What made saving actually work for me was treating the money like it was already spent the moment it enters. When I see my salary notification I immediately move the 15% and what I see left is what I have. If I see the full amount I will spend the full amount, that is just how my brain works and I stopped fighting it.

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Have you ever created a budget that would improve your financial situation? Show us practically how.

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Yes, and the screenshots above is exactly how it look in practice.

So what I did was build the whole thing inside Notion. The main page have a table showing how I share my salary across every category with the percentage and the naira amount side by side so I can see both at once. There is no guessing, the number is just there waiting for me.

Below that table I built a full expense tracker database. Every time I spend money on something I open it and log it — the name of the expense, which category it falls under, how much I spent, and what the budget limit for that category is. The system then show me a status tag, green means I am within budget, yellow means I am getting close, red means I have gone over.

What changed everything for me was the board view. It groups all my expenses by category so I can look at June and see all my feeding entries together, all my transport entries together and so on. Looking at it right now I can see transport went slightly past the limit in weeks one and two and feeding for week two was a bit above what I planned.

Before this idea, I just had rough numbers in my head and no way to actually compare them to anything. Now the tracker does that work for me automatically.

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What advice would you give to others for great budget planning?

Do not wait until you earn more to start. I wasted time thinking the budget thing would make sense later when money is bigger. The habits you build with small money is the same habits that will handle big money. Start now with whatever you have.

Write the plan somewhere outside your head. A notebook, your phone, Notion, anything physical or digital. Things that only exist in your memory tend to shift and change very conveniently whenever temptation comes.

Review it at least once a week. Not to punish yourself for going over somewhere but just to know where things stand. Even five minutes on Sunday night is enough to catch a problem before it gets worse.

And figure out your own weak spots because they will be different from mine. My problem was data and tired spending. Your own money leakage might be somewhere completely different. The only way to find it is to start tracking and actually look at what the numbers are telling you.

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Thank you to @ahsansharif and everyone in this community for another solid week. This has been one of the greatest plans achieved which have been useful for my own life and not just for the post. Looking forward to seeing how others are managing their finances too!

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Comments on posts I have engaged with.

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I will love to invite my friends
@imohmitch
@us-andrew
@sampson01