Next is figuring out how you spend your money. Perez suggested analyzing three months of bank statements and dividing everything into categories like rent/mortgage, insurance, car payments, food, internet, Grubhub, and anything else that makes sense. Just make sure you also include categories for your financial goals (i.e., investing, savings). Now, write your set categories down the length of your page and treat it like a shopping list, allocating funds from your total amount listed at the top into each group ($100 to groceries, $200 into your savings account, $50 for “fun” and so on) until you “run out” of money. The goal is to get to $0. “Zero-based budgeting gives you an audit of how you’ve been spending,” Perez said. “You’ll spend all your income on paper and now you know what to do for the rest of the month.”
