7-Step Guide to RESET Your Budget | minimalism + saving money 

Please like this video + comment with YOUR best tips to reset your budget! Click here for the 50-page Minimalist Budget Bundle: shop.atozenlife.com/products/minimalist-budget-binder

Knowing your husband grew up in extreme poverty and you lost your parents so young, I find so amazing that the both of you were able to take your life in your hands and build a beautiful family! SO inspiring 💙

It upsets me to hear that people are so mean to you. You are such a beautiful lady. And you seem like you're very caring and nurturing with your family. I'm not a minimalist....yet. but I watch your channel because it is something I would like to be someday. The information you provide is helping me appreciate living with less stuff. When you cry in your videos, I feel your pain. Please know that there are folks out here who are cheering you on! Keep smiling and keep going! If I ever get to meet you in person, don't think I'm weird, but I'd like to give you a big hug!

Food savings: When I was super poor (and didn't realize I was poor enough to qualify for the Medicaid and the maximum amount of food stamps) I'd get online and look at all the grocery stores' sales flyers for the week, write down their loss leaders, meal plan from those ingredients, and then make my shopping list store by store listing the items in the order I'd encounter them in each store's layout. I also bought bags of baking soda from the grain elevator and flour & dry beans directly from a local farmer. That's how I fed my family of nine on $100/week (including toiletries & cleaning supplies) in the 2000s and $125/week in the 20-teens. I also bought things like Now that I can spend more, I have a different strategy. * I use Aldi for the basics. * After Aldi I go to ethnic groceries. They have many items for my family (due to assorted food allergies) that are priced like staples which would be priced like boutique items in mainstream grocery stores (ex: spices at every ethnic grocery store, rice noodles and other Asian staples in Korean, Vietnamese & Chinese grocery stores, spices everywhere, and brined goat & sheep cheeses in an Armenian grocery store for $12 for 2-pounds!) I also feel really good about supporting my neighbors and community by spending money in local family-owned businesses. That money circulates through our community so many more times that money spent at regional and national chains. * I use farmers markets. All our area farmers markets participate in a program whereby people getting food assistance get coins to double their money. I can have the market master take $15 off my food assistance card and give my $30 worth of market coins to spend on food and food-bearing plants at the market. If I want cheaper food, I can ask the farmers for deals for ugly food for preserving. As the farmers markets around me tend to be pretty bougie, they have very high standards for what they'll sell for top dollar. Make a deal for canning tomatoes or other produce and they'll bring you a bunch for maybe 1/3 to 1/4 the price they sell them at the market. (It's keeping them from compost.) This means for larger quantities, I'm actually paying 1/6 to 1/8 the asking price. Even if someone doesn't use food assistance or if they do but their farmers markets don't have double-up bucks, they can still save significantly asking for about bruised & split produce for preserving. * As I don't support that smiling corporate behemoth, I'll buy what's left locally at a chain. I do Meijer first because, even though they've gone terribly downhill in their treatment of workers and customers since Fred Meijer died, they're still union. I get a protein bar and my PB2 there. I'd prefer to go to independently owned mainstream grocery store in my area, but they don't carry those two items. I should probably ask if they'd be willing to stock them as, once again, I'd prefer to by from a locally-owned family business than from a corporation, even one based in my state.

I like to hear your story. this is a good place to learn English

I save 70% of my income but that reduced to 60% this last month. Im definitely rewatching this video to reset my priorities

Today is my reset day! I am in tears with my finances and current job situation. Thank you ❤

Can you do a video about digital minimalism? I'm feel like I'm overloaded with photos, apps, saved documents and notes, etc.

Being honest with yourself and making hard decisions can be some of the hardest things to do. I have made HUGE progress on my financial goals over the last 15 years. I paid off $30K in debt, purchased my home and was making big progress toward paying off my home early. But in the last few years I’ve had some medical issues that came to light. My doctor has recommended medication that isn’t covered under insurance. We tried other meds. I got 2nd and 3rd options. I tried the routes of trying to get the insurance to cover, but they won’t. I even ended up changing jobs and the new job insurance won’t cover. It is just under $1k per month. I’ve started taking the meds and paying out of pocket with promising results so far. Having to put my other financial goals to the side to pay for this has been very difficult for me, but realizing that my health is something I need to prioritize is a fact.

This is AWESOME! How I wish you could give an age-appropriate class in every school, starting in about 6th grade and continue through junior college. Our society would be so much better off with people controlling their own money, instead of big corporations!!

Having a meal plan is such a huge help with not extra spending. We also cut out buying chips, saves $12 each week not buying them.

My partner and I are planning to move abroad in the next 3-4 years, after we get our house paid off. We will be moving with our 4 cats, but otherwise hope to move with as little as possible. So we've been working on both saving money AND downsizing what we have so when the time comes we can move with as little as possible. Your videos really help remind me that this goal is actually possible, it just takes some work. Thank you for your transparency.

Inflation is so high even just feeding me and my boyfriend and our two dogs healthy food is quite pricey and challenging but luckily we are really good at food prep and making sure food is not wasted, also the dogs are now good with their food as for a while we had to switch around because of allergies and interest, it’s so nice that pet stores take open pet food back if your dog doesn’t like it and then you can use the money for food they do like. Very handy.

I feel like when people go into minimalism, next step is being great at finances. When you stop buying a lot of things, the more money you have to save. I'm doing that now with my Roth IRA and stock market investing. Money management is the key to saving money.

I used to spend so much money on junk. Ever since I started watching this channel a few months ago, I'm taking the leap. I don't buy things I don't need. It's a lot easier when I realized I don't care about impressing people with material objects anymore.

The New York Times just printed an article of how much cars are costing families. Public transit is a disgrace in the USA. People are spending a large percentage of their income on housing and transportation.

I really like your all kinds of videos. I found it useful and interesting for me. I am a number of your youtube family! Appreciate your work)

Great list of frugal habits and commitments. I've always shopped with a list but even though I was committed to only buying what was on the list, my total shop was always higher than my budget total. I've recently started using the free pick-up service at walmart. I set a limit on my weekly food budget of $70 for 2 adults. I make my list and then add and/or subtract items from the list for the whole week right up until the day we pick up. It's almost become a game. If you only had $70 to spend this week, what would you buy? It has saved us SO much money! In addition, we got the walmart credit card and get 5% cash back on every on-line purchase so we're getting $14 cash back on $300 per month. We only use this card for the walmart purchases and auto pay the statement balance every month. It's made a big impact on our food expenses.

Thank you for this, Marissa! Such a great thing to think about as we head into the holidays. Really appreciate your compassion as you encourage people to change their behaviors, so much easier to hear from someone who has "done the work"! Looking forward to getting back into some of these practices!💖

Hi Marissa. This video is so timely...and strangely so... I started 2023 as a no-buy year, and was on track doing very well until the spring, when I needed to change shoe models because of tendinosis (I'm a runner)...then I needed to upgrade my hydration pack. All those are very well acceptable, as they were needs for what I do...but they were a larger, added expense. But then in the summer I returned to Instagram after 6 months away and within a month found myself hooked by advertisements from one brand in particular. I wanted to try them and tried to be careful... But just a few online thrift store purchases later, I had STUFF...and then the brand had their big end of season sale. And thus, my strong no-buy-year start came to a slightly bitter end. I guess the key difference this time around is that it did not take me two years to recognize what was happening, but rather about two weeks, and I didn't feel the need to fall in with every online organization doing good but peddling gear for sale. Just last night I reached my emotional limit. So I re-deleted all the purchasing apps of my phone and muted that brand on my account, so I won't see their posts. And after the last item arrives, I will delete all my accounts except eBay. I had really good intentions for 2023 and felt so much better about my new habits and tracking all the money I was saving, not to mention showing my daughters that shopping all the time is not the answer.😥 I guess it's not too late to start over and I'll take it a step further by revisiting our grocery store habits as well. I will download some of your worksheets. As always, I'm so grateful to have found you as a resource. Thank you for what you do. (P.S. I agree with the other comment below and your 5 F's were FUNDAMENTAL in helping me purge my running and non-running wardrobe, and it still is. Absolutely brilliant.)

Budget tips: I've started a zero waste journey during the pandemic, and in the long run, it saves tones of money to avoid buying disposable items constantly. Also, setting financial goals and creating several money pots on my bank account is a game changer for me. By doing this for less than a year, I managed to pay off my debts and planned for my holidays and for other bigger purchases. Overall, thank you so much for your videos! It really helps me to keep the minimalist momentum in my house, and it really inspired me to clear my finances, which makes it easier when it comes to avoid impulse buying. I tried the spending freeze for a couple of weeks earlier this year, which helped me to realise where my problems were. Thanks again for creating your content. I'm looking forward to watching your videos every week 😇

Thank you for this video. In South America organic food is also cheaper than processed food. I also like eating healthy and at home rather than getting processed food.

I’m doing a No-spend challenge this month. First week, so good! Let’s we if I can keep this up. :)

Hello Marissa always a great pleasure to listen to you everyweek. All your points are really great and they all work than you for everyone. We did the Ramsey plan 2 years ago and paid off our mortgage . What really helped in our journey was the budget'of course, and resetting our expenses for example in grocery shopping thanks to the envelope system. Now we do a pantry menu shopping system, basically use up what's in our pantry first, and go shopping with cash. We are no longer afraid to use the calculator on our phone while we shop and have noticed that here in France quite a lot of people use it too....

I spend $70 for one person and I do my own cooking. What you are spending is accurate. You're doing good. Keep up all your good work!

I started my budget reset last month. I was living in a small city with a really good job as a general doctor… but I will be going back to Uni to become a surgeon. That means starting a 4 month fellowship (no pay) in September, moving to the big city… and then cutting my salary in half once I start the surgery program (for 3 years). My husband and I started analyzing our expenses, and this month we started budgeting. I knew I would need a new laptop, and some hospital scrubs, so that was a needed expense. And we are also decluttering furniture and other stuff so we can rent a smaller and cheaper apartment in the big city. Wish me luck

Coming here from cass, can't wait to drive into all of your videos!!! Loved your interview with the clutter bug!

My set expenses are automatic via credit card. I keep a cash stash for any of my “extras” that are my wants. I reload $100 every 2 weeks on my Amazon gift card to help myself keep spending conscious. If I don’t have enough balance, then I have to wait for my next reload.

I'm based in the UK. This probably isn't much help or everyone's cup of tea but shopping for clothes and food in sales, reduced etc helps so much. Clothes in sales, on the Vinted app and charity shop helps lots! And use up vouchers, coupons and any cards like a Blue Light card if you have one as much as possible. Buying food that's freezable in the reduced section is great because you can freeze it until you'll use it up and it saves food waste. The other day i bought a dress reduced from £25 to £10 in Asda and the quality was amazing and it's really helped as I've just started new job and wanted some clothing pieces for work.

Food in USA is crazy expensive! You payed around 1000$, so around 250$ per person, when me and my partner [living in Poland] pay around 100$, so 50$ per person 😐 sometimes watching budgeting from other countries makes me realise how lucky I am to live in such a cheap country. But however inexpensive our lifestyle would be, we still need a budget reset because we moved from small town to a giany city... And giant city = giant expenses...

So glad I came across your channel :)

Excellent timing as I have been reassessing our budget heading into the holidays and new year. It has been 10+ years since I’ve bought much of anything in my wardrobe. Garments were getting so shabby as you can imagine. This year I have prioritized upgrading my wardrobe, jewelry, makeup, hair. Same for my husband (minus the jewelry and makeup 😂). We look and feel so much better. The past ten years have been spent tending to his mother with dementia and my father with a severe stroke. We terribly neglected ourselves. But they are both in Heaven now and we can focus on us. We want a home so that is the big goal. I have pretty much completed Christmas shopping so now it’s time to focus on saving and investing. I was feeling rather guilty for revamping our wardrobes but the boost we got from improving our appearance has been so good for our souls. I’m a bargain shopper who loves high quality so it has taken a year to find what we wanted at discounted prices but we did it! I am doing a big purge of clothes now and I love my trips to the donation center and watching them go bye-bye! We are also purging household items to prepare for a new home. I really need to do a no spend challenge. That will push me into meal planning which I’ve never done but I am starting to see the benefits of it. High quality food is a top priority not only for enjoyment but reducing future medical expenses. Marissa, you are just THE BEST at helping me keep the important things in life in focus! 💕❤️💕🥰

Quality food is definitely our priority; in our home we prefer fresh and try our best to stay away from processed food. Budgets resets are so important I check our spending constantly and still make mistakes. We are going to try a spending freeze later in the year.

Hi Marissa, Please Share Your Minimalistic Skin And Hair Care Routine ❤️

Great tips! I've recently become an empty nester and started meal planning & prepping as a way to reduce my grocery bill. Also, putting a set chunk into savings as soon as i get paid, before anything else

Love your tips. Thank you

Love all your tips!! Thank you for sharing! ❤️❤️❤️

Excellent advice, Marissa!

This is most needed! As you mentioned, life will keep changing, and so will our needs and expenses. It's great to have guidance on how not to fall through the cracks when this happens.

The envelop system is great. It has helped me to stick to the allocated weekly budget and save money as well because I do not have extra cash on hand for any unnecessary purchases 😊 I love your tips ❤

Money is something I have always had an issue with. I like to have “things” too much 🤦🏼‍♀️ I can’t wait to dig more into your budgeting help! Thank you for sharing!!!

Thank you Marissa. I recently started at a new job with a lower salary. We need to rent plus paying our other house in another province. Luckily we rent it out but still the repairs and rates are for my pocket. My husband stopped working last year December. So it is time to rest that button very hard. From South Africa.

Such a great video 😎

Thank you for this video! ☺🌺

Good morning Marissa! I so look forward to watching you and learning more! Also love hearing how your family is doing! Thank you so much for your time and knowledge! 😊❤

Thank you.

Great advice. Just having a budget and seeing what you spend and where helps me.

So motivating. You make it look so easy. Really appreciate and love your videos.

Thanks for the content, and welcome to the chicago suburbs!!

Marissa, that USDA link is so cool! I had no idea something like that already existed! Thank you for sharing. Always love your content ❤

yes!! The best quality and not quatity!!!

Great video

I was just thinking earlier that I do so much better with cash... its just being able to see what I have to spend.. I budget better. Love your videos!

I have a spreadsheet, with categories and do spending checks each month, but also I budget 12 months in advance for all my expenses laid out and I can see what the leeway is in my budget each month.

Great information. Glad you have a resource to purchase. Ive really been more thoughtful about spending since i started following you a year or so ago. I appreciate your acknowledging that it is easier to spend in the USA and that our prices are higher. God bless

Hey Marissa! I just want to say thanks for all the work you put into your channel. I'm currently doing a fall clothing purge and your videos on the 5 Fs are incredibly helpful. My partner and I are also attempting a no-spend month, so I have gone back and re-watched some of those videos too :D I am curious how you store and organize all of your footage... You are even frugal in your filming, I love how you re-use old footage and include it in new vids. What is your system? What are your secrets?!? All the best!

Yay this is exactly the content I need! Thanks Marissa

I've just been revisiting my own budget! I have just married and we are building our forever home, so it's super easy to lose sight of how much we actually pay for our lifestyle. Luckily, after closer look, we are still on the same level of everyday expenses! Not counting inflation though 😅

Thank you, Marissa, for helping so many.

My local grocery store offers free pickup so I input my list on line and my order is loaded into my trunk. This way I’m not tempted to buy anything I don’t need and I know my cost before I checkout so I can modify my order if needed.

I always wish you’d have chapters time stamped. So I can go back to learn about each points more!

I've been struggling with paying off credit cards but then I go and use them again so it's keeping me in a cycle so I'm going to have to try to just put them aside and not have them in my purse anymore and go with cash envelopes thank you so much for your help

Seeing this video and hearing the amount of money it takes to buy for one month of groceries I am grateful I don't live in the USA. Even that 'thrifty amount' of grocery money is ridiculously high in my eyes. No wonder a lot of people there are having a hard time paying bills and buying food and stuff. It's so expensive!

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the frugal fit mom . She does some budgeting as well I think but a lot of her videos are extreme grocery challenges spending extremely less on groceries and how to save at the grocery store. She has a family of 6.

I have had to reset my budget because my husband has received a raise and soon we'll be adding baby foods into the equation. This video is a perfect way to help people learn better about budgeting! Your husband's upbringing sounds very difficult. I hope your sons have a great time skateboarding! I watch skateboarding pro games on youtube with my family. I skated in 1994-1995 poorly with my older brother but it was still pretty fun. I'd rather watch it and stay safe! May your children also stay safe. That is great there is gym stuff where you live!! One day I hope I can get a membership where I can swim laps in a pool.

What excellent timing. We just decided that we need to prioritize our mortgage while we have a low rate, so we're looking at where we can eliminate other areas of spending for the next two years and pay down the mortgage as much as we can before we have to renew at a much higher rate. Thanks for the inspiration.

Tip for people who shop online, e.g. Amazon / Paypal - put money in the account like a giftcard. and say you can only top it up at certain months. E.g. every 2 months. Then if you have an Amazon addiction or an Etsy epidemic you can say "okay i can only afford x y z with the budget in the account."

Thank you for this video! I am interested in learning how to feed my husband and I better for less money than we currently spend on groceries. Do you have any suggestions on how we can get started on doing that? Thank you again for all your helpful videos!

I'm not sure about how accurate the USDA food plan is that you linked. They usually go by $100 per person per month. So for a family of four it would be $400. This is how they determine the amount for food stamps and other food supplement programs. I have a family of 7 and we go over budget sometimes spending around $1000 a month. I can't imagine according to the link you provided how much they would say we needed to spend. Very helpful video though 😊

We eat high quality food on a budget by gardening, buying in bulk from Amish stores and canning our own food. I also buy our meat from a local butcher which is better quality and cheaper than grocery stores. I try to focus on zero waste, clean out my refrigerator before I go to the store every week and taking stock of what we still have. I also put new food in the back in my pantry and keep tabs on the dates.

Budgeting never worked for me… I know, I know. But it is a lot of work. Sometimes I write down my expenses for one or two months to know what we need, but never made it longer. I am still a very cautious spender and I learned meal planning and thrifting and repairing as soon as I was out of my parent’s home. We are quite frugal without budgeting. But memberships are a problem: we are paying for a dance class we did not attend since Corona because we don’t have a babysitter for Saturday evenings… But we want to make it work!

Love your Videos, thanks a ton!! They help me a lot in my own decluttering journey. I sell everything on carboot sales so that it can be loved and valued further. Just out of curiosity: With more expensive stuff like rice cooker etc., why would you leave it behind and buy a new one? Is it cheaper than the shipping? Love, Andy

Love the neckline on your white top! Can you share what it is?

Healthy food is outrageous expensive here in the states.

???Marissa, how to do budget for the changing cost of some fixed expenses i.e. utility bills? Thank you for all your advice.

Today is my birthday, thanks for uploading a video!

Now that you’re in the USA again, shop at the dollar tree and five and below Those are great affordable stores for just about everything

Ever since I decided to go minimalist and started watching your videos, I have been able to catch myself before buying something I need for a single time (yesterday was a pressure washer). Instead I see if I can borrow or rent it instead.

We have the same rice cooker. Use it EVERY day😄

A great video as always. How do you decide what subject to cover for the next week?

We lived in Tanzania for a year and the healthy food was so cheap and the junk food was so expensive. Like the USA, it's flipped in New Zealand and so expensive to buy good food😢 😢

Which rice cooker do you prefer, snd and why?

Is that including take out and restaurant meals?

💪💪💪

I have a question- I like to take food when I travel or go out for the day and have been using a collapsible soft cooler (it's cubic in shape when it is open and full). The one we have is wearing out and I need to replace it. Although I like quality over quantity, I'm not on a Yeti budget, so if any of you frugal shopper have any recommendations for a good blend of quality and value, I would love to hear all about it!

I'm going through my bank statement to actually figure out what we are spending on groceries and eating out. Everything has been going up but I want to make sure the budget is taking these issues into consideration. We cancelled our cable and went strictly to streaming.

What kind of rice cooker did you buy?

Great video, but I've always been overwhelmed by finances. Where should I start if I've never created a budget?

Me eating a kinder bueno ( german sweet) while listening to healthy and low budget diet 😂❤

I agree 100% about cash - which I HATE spending lol. However, almost all of my shopping has to be done online because of the sh*tty town we live in.

I have that same rice cooker. This westerner now eats more rice than wheat.

Writing everything down/accounting. I don't have credit cards, I use cash.

Great Video ❤ is 71 too late to start a budget 😮

Per risparmiare sulla spesa e mangiare sano si può sostituire la carne coi legumi. I legumi secchi costano infinitamente meno della carne, con pochissima organizzazione e una pentola a pressione si possono consumare ogni giorno in mille modi diversi.

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Do you have a link to the rice cooker you got?

I found when living in Germany my groceries actually cost more!!!

We are most likely moving back to the US next year (😭), and the idea of spending more than 1k a month in grocery makes me sick to my stomach 😱😵‍💫

High Quality Food is a priority for our family, and WOW it has gotten SO expensive! We are also a family of 4 with 2 growing boys and one dog that lives here in the states. I wanted to ask if $1066 that you spent last month on JUST food, or also for cleaning supplies, paper products, drinks, etc.? I feel like we are easily DOUBLE that, but I count food, water, tea, coffee, pet supplies, paper products, cleaning supplies, etc. all as our grocery/household line item in our budget!! Do you keep food separate from these other line items?

Argh! Food shopping for a family of 5 in Australia is ridiculous!! We value good food which increases our spending each week - grocery shopping is our biggest expense!!!