Stop Slashing Your Entire Budget, Start Saving With Intent

There are millions of tips and tricks out there on how to slash your budget to grow your savings, but many of them fail to take a holistic approach to saving. 

When my partner and I were last talking about budgeting, she suggested we cut down on family travel to pay for the other trips we wanted to take. I wasn’t willing to cut down on visiting family and decided to identify other areas where we could cut our spending. This conversation made me realize how much savings should be about identifying priorities rather than slashing all expenses and making yourself miserable. 

Marsha Barnes, founder of The Finance Bar, is a certified financial wellness company dedicated to helping women and couples improve their financial health.

“Unlike conventional budgets that often focus solely on limiting expenses, saving with intent encourages a holistic view of financial wellness, promoting both personal growth and community support,” she said.

Three in 5 Americans feel like they’ve made financial mistakes because they’re not knowledgeable enough, according to Experian. While personal finances may pose a challenge to most people, Black women are negatively impacted more significantly than other groups. Across an entire career span, Black women could lose over $1 million. 

To combat this, Chloé Moore, certified financial planner and founder of Financial Staples, calls us to become more financially literate by learning basic concepts like maximizing the budget you have at any income level, following the proper order of saving, avoiding high-risk endeavors, and circumventing debt-building mindless spending.  

“Identifying your money story is essential for anyone who is new to engaging in financial planning,” Marsha said. “This involves understanding the way you spend money, what your patterns are, what your limiting beliefs are.”

According to Chloé said we’re all products of our environment, so it’s normal for us to have to unlearn certain money mechanisms we’ve picked up through our upbringing or cultural background. The key here is optimism.

“As Americans, we tend to mindlessly spend,” she said.

Once you’ve identified your money story and know yourself better as a spender, you’ll be able to set clear intentions by defining what you wish to spend more money on and less money on. 

“Write down all your regular monthly expenses and evaluate where you can make adjustments without feeling deprived,” she said.

That’s what saving with intent is all about, figuring out how to save for your lifestyle. While I wasn’t willing to cut back spending on visiting my family, I was willing to drastically slash our dining out budget because I love to host. This might not work for you if trying out the latest restaurant in town is your go-to activity but we all have a trade-off that works for us. 

It’s important to shed some common misconceptions to start saving with intent. Unfortunately, 1 in 3 Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings, in part because people think they need to be debt-free to start saving but Chloé said that’s not the case. 

“You want to save 15% to 20% of your gross income, there’s no minimum,” she said. “It’s about building the habit. Start small and build overtime.”

Starting by building your emergency fund of three to six months can help you feel stable and confident, knowing you can handle what life could throw at you. Other good places to start saving include investing in your company 401k or a Roth IRA.

This is the fun part, where you get to reward yourself (here and there). You’ll want to think of each intention you’ve identified as a bucket. This one’s for travel, this one’s for a home. Chloé suggests utilizing a savings account platform that allows you to split your money into different categories without needing to open multiple accounts. 

Additionally, Marsha said prioritizing spending on experiences or items that genuinely enrich our lives is the key to feeling fulfilled with your intentional savings plan. 

This may be the most important step. Once you’ve identified, set up, and implemented your savings process, you’ll want to remain consistent by meeting your goals. Setting up automated transfers and carving out regular time to review your finances are great ways of keeping yourself on track. 

Saving money shouldn’t mean cutting everything — just cutting smarter. Now that you’ve learned about saving with intent, it’s time to create your very own savings plan tailored to your needs.