The Backwards Budgeting Spreadsheet
A one-way ticket to intentional spending
When thinking about what my paid offering would be for subscribers, I first considered the obvious—paywalling posts that dive deeper into my personal finances, particularly earnings (a trend I’ve seen—and enjoyed reading—in other Substacks). And while I think those posts are so interesting, I already post that outside a paywall (plus my monthly resets like this one).
Maybe I’ll share more nitty gritty financial details (like negotiating for my next full time job’s salary, or how much I really make on a slow or busy night working my side gig as a bartender in NYC) behind the paywall over time as I expand my paid offerings, but for now, that type of content is free—I’m all about salary transparency!
When considering what I want to offer paid subscribers, I thought instead about the tools that my close friends and I use to help feel more confident around our spending. And I landed on the template I personally use to budget each month. If you join as a paid subscriber, in addition to supporting my weekly posts, you’ll get access to my Backwards Budgeting template.
I use this Google spreadsheet to track my spending each month, but more importantly, I use it to reflect on my spending from the previous month and evaluate if it’s aligned with my intentional spending goals. And now, you can use it, too! You can manually plug in your spending throughout the month like I do (it keeps it more intentional), or import it from your credit card statements.
Some highlights of what you’ll get through the paid subscription tier and Backwards Budgeting template:
Customizable categories based on your budget
Monthly charts showing proportion of spend across each category
Annual chart showing change in spend per category month over month
Reflections tab to track goals and reflections each month
Check-in chat on the 1st of each month through the Substack chat
And at the founding membership tier, I’ll help you set up your spreadsheet 1:1 through a 30 minute video call.
I hope you’ll consider supporting my work—and trying out backwards budgeting—by becoming a paid subscriber.
Most importantly, thank you all for being here in the Ten Dollar Latte community! Your comments on each post really make me feel like we’re all in this together—we all regret spending money on some things, we’re all trying to spend more intentionally, and we can all celebrate our money wins together!
The spreadsheet can be found below the paywall:
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