Thanks for the comment. It’s a great question and one that many people have.

Your question gets to the core of “Problem #1: Uses Percentages Of Income.”

There’s no question that you’ve got your act together in terms of where your money is going. However, with an income 33% less than the average household income, I’d stay away from using the 50/30/20 budget as a way to manage your expenses.

Instead, I’d go with something that offers more control and flexibility.

If you like apps, check out YNAB (it costs a few dollars per month).

The envelope system works, it’s just a bit of work: https://www.thewaystowealth.com/money-management/dave-ramsey-envelope-system/

Another alternative is zero-based budgeting: https://www.thewaystowealth.com/money-management/dave-ramsey-allocated-spending-plan/

P.S. — Congrats on #4!

• We make somewhere around $40,000 (I don’t think any more than that, but my husband is hourly and also has a second job that varies from month to month, which he’s wanting to quit).
• We have three children and are expecting another.
• We don’t have cable or any streaming services.
• Our cell phone costs $25/month. Both our cars are used and paid for.

We roughly try to stick to this, but we’ve been doing our grocery shopping out of the “30” part of the budget and are always out of that money before the next paycheck (but the “50” part is never empty).

I’m nervous to take food out of that, but maybe I should just sit down and average out my bills and how much we put in there per month (it changes because of being hourly) and see if we could realistically get our groceries or at least the first $X of them from this.