Nobody tells you adulthood is just opening your banking app and saying, “God abeg.” Every. Single. Month.
You get paid, and within less than 48 hours, the money is already divided: rent, data, Electricity, food, and even a “just one small hangout” that costs ₦100k. By next week, you’re pretending you don’t see that debit alert from your card.
And the worst part? Everyone tells you to budget. As if budgeting is some magic spell that multiplies money. “Track your spending.” “Cut out this, Cut out that.” Please! My money is not even enough for me, so what exactly am I supposed to be tracking? The slow death of my bank balance?
Still, here’s the truth no one likes to hear: you don’t actually escape budgeting. You either do it once and let systems save your life… or you do it every weekend when you’re crying about how broke you are. Pick your fight.
This isn’t about turning into the boring friend who says no to every outing. It’s about creating cheats that let you live soft without turning into a financial ghost story. Because let’s be real: nobody actually wants to budget. But everybody wants to stop waking up broke.
Why We All Hate Budgets (And Maybe That’s Okay)
Budgets have bad PR. They sound like punishment. Like curfews for your money. And who actually likes being told “no” by their own bank account?
Here’s the real reason you probably hate budgeting: it feels like restriction. It feels like guilt. Every time you sit down to “make a plan,” you’re not writing numbers; you’re writing down everything you can’t do. No dinner at that new restaurant. There’s no random clear the cart. No second bottle of wine on Friday. It feels like you’re shrinking your life just to keep the lights on.
And then there’s the shame cycle. You try to budget, you fail, you overspend, and suddenly you’re in the “I’m so irresponsible” spiral, which makes you avoid looking at your bank app entirely. Out of sight, out of mind, until your card declines. Again.
It’s not that you’re bad with money. It’s that budgets are bad at being human. They were built for people who enjoy spreadsheets, who get high off colour-coded charts, who find joy in tracking receipts. That’s not most of us.
Most of us just want to know: Do I have enough to live my life without crying next week? That’s it. That’s the entire question.
And if that’s you, then congratulations, you don’t need a “perfect budget.” You need a system that works even when you’re messy, lazy, tired, impulsive, or just in a season where life feels too expensive to manage.
The point isn’t to turn you into some finance guru. The point is freedom. Budgets aren’t about saying no, they’re about making sure you can say yes without panic. Yes to brunch. Definitely to skincare. Yes to rent being paid on time and still having flex money left over.
So if you’ve been carrying guilt about “not knowing how to budget,” drop it. You don’t have a problem. The traditional idea of budgeting is.
The Zero-Stress Setup (aka Budget Once, Live Forever)
Here’s the secret: budgeting doesn’t have to be a weekly assignment. You only need to do it once. After that, automation carries you.
Think of it like this: your salary isn’t actually “yours.” The moment it lands, it already belongs to different people: your landlord, your electricity provider, your internet service provider, and the small chops vendor who knows your order by heart. The problem is, if you leave that money sitting in one big account, it disappears faster than you can say “Card declined, try again.”
That’s why the zero-based method works. Fancy name, simple trick: every single naira has a job before you touch it. Not “maybe.” Not “we’ll see.” A job.
Here’s how it looks in real life:
Let’s say you earn ₦300K. The morning it hits:
- ₦150K flies out automatically for rent, bills, and boring-but-important life things.
- ₦50K moves into savings or investments (the future you is now on payroll).
- ₦100K sits in your main account, free and clear. That’s your flex money, food, transport, enjoyment, skincare, and even that random “I deserve it” impulse buy. Extra points for you if you actually buy the provision and the other stuff, so whatever is left in your account, you know it’s just flex money.
Now, when you’re swiping, you’re not guessing. Also, this way you can be certain that the boring stuff will be handled automatically. You already know the boring stuff is handled. You’re not “failing at budgeting.” You’re just spending the money you deliberately left for fun. No guilt. No confusion.
And the best part? You only had to set this up once. Your bank app or fintech wallet can transfer that money around for you every month. You don’t sit with pen and paper. More importantly, you don’t need to “be good with numbers.” You just set the rules and let the system take care of you.
The zero-stress setup works because it flips the script: budgeting isn’t about controlling yourself. It’s about setting up your finances so they manage themselves. You don’t need willpower when your rent is already gone to the landlord, your savings are hidden where you can’t touch them, and your enjoyment fund is just waiting for you to say yes.
Tricks for the Girl Who Can’t Stick to A Budget
So maybe you’ve tried the whole “be disciplined” thing. You swore you’d write every single expense down. You even downloaded that cute pastel budgeting app. Two weeks later, you forgot your password, deleted the app out of shame, and went back to vibes. That’s fine. Self-control is overrated; systems are more effective.
Here are tricks that actually work when you’re not the “spreadsheet girl”:
A. Delegate Expenses to specific accounts.
Admit it, you have more than one bank account, so why not delegate a task or expense ot them. Have an account for miscellaneous expenses, savings, feeding, and flexible spending. And if you don’t, fortunately, we have digital banks today that you can open right this minute, in just a few clicks. It helps you to prevent overspending. When you’ve already separated the funds, you are not lured into overconfidence when looking at your bank account.
B. Cheat-Day Fund
No budget will work if it makes you feel caged. So set aside a small amount of money each month that has zero rules. No judgment. No tracking. Want to blow it on shawarma every night? Cool. Buy a random wig? Fine. This isn’t irresponsibility, it’s insurance against rebellion. Because if you don’t build fun into your budget, you’ll sabotage it later.
C. The 70/20/10 Rule for Lazy Queens
If the idea of zero-based budgeting feels like too much, there’s a lazier hack:
- 70% for essentials (rent, food, transport, bills)
- 20% for savings/investments
- 10% for enjoyment
It’s simple, it’s flexible, and it keeps you from blowing the whole bag in week one.
D. Future-You Sabotage
Open a savings account that’s annoying to touch. The kind where withdrawals take 24 hours, or where you have to physically go to the bank. That friction gives you space to talk yourself out of dumb impulse buys. Sometimes, the best budget trick is to slow yourself down.
E. The “Pay Yourself First” Trick
The first thing you need to set aside once you receive your salary is a portion for savings. This is because when faced with expenses, savings are the first item on the list to be considered for removal. This ensures that you always have an emergency fund, for actual emergencies, not aso ebi for that girl we both know you don’t even like that much.
F. Automation Everything
You have a phone; use it. Automatically set up your phone to pay for services, send money to your savings account, for rent, and for food. Yes, your banking app can do this; there’s a scheduled transfers option. This reduces the manual task of having to do that every month.
Read Also: 5 Free AI Tools That’ll Make You Feel Like You’ve Hired an Assistant
You Don’t Have To Love Budgets, But There’s An Easy Way Out
Here’s the truth: budgeting isn’t supposed to make your life smaller. It’s supposed to make your life softer.
Because what’s the point of working hard, collecting salary alerts, and stressing through Lagos traffic if you can’t enjoy it? The real flex isn’t pretending money doesn’t matter; it’s having money left when it does matter.
Think about the last time your friends called you for a last-minute trip. Maybe it was a beach weekend, perhaps it was just brunch that turned into dinner, karaoke, and “one more round.” Did you say yes, then spend the next week dodging your landlord’s calls? That’s not enjoyment!
When you budget, even using the tricks we’ve discussed, you’re buying yourself the right to say yes without panic. The rent is already paid. Your savings have already moved. You know your skincare splurge is covered by the “Treat Yo’self” fund. That’s not a restriction. That’s freedom.
So when you hear “budgeting,” don’t imagine Excel and punishment. Imagine a system that makes sure you’re never too broke to enjoy your life. Imagine having your money on autopilot while you’re busy living.
Because at the end of the day, budgeting isn’t about saying no. It’s about making sure you can keep saying yes.
