# New Money Playbook


## Posts

- [A Realistic Grocery Budget for One Person (And How to Build Your Own Number)](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/grocery-budget-for-one-person/): Stop copying a national average. Four weeks of receipts gives you a grocery number that actually holds, plus the per-meal arithmetic and the six levers that move it.
- [How to Save $5,000 in a Year on an Ordinary Salary](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/how-to-save-5000-in-a-year/): $5,000 a year is $416.67 a month, $96.15 a week, $13.70 a day. Four routes to that number with the arithmetic shown, and an honest look at which ones are repeatable.
- [How Much of Your Paycheck Should Go to Rent? (Run Your Own Number)](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/how-much-of-paycheck-for-rent/): The 30% rule uses gross income, which is why it keeps failing people. Here is the take-home version, a worked comparison, and how to find the rent ceiling your own budget can actually carry.
- [What to Do When You Can't Pay All Your Bills This Month](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/cant-pay-all-bills-this-month/): A neutral triage order for a month where the money does not cover everything: what to protect first, what can safely wait, which calls to make, and what to avoid entirely.
- [How to Budget on an Irregular Income (Freelance, Tips, Commission)](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/budget-irregular-income/): Pay yourself a fixed salary from a buffer account. A worked 12-month table showing how a swinging freelance income becomes a steady $3,200 a month, and how big the buffer needs to be.
- [Debt Snowball vs Avalanche: The Same $18,400 of Debt, Both Ways](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/debt-snowball-vs-avalanche/): One identical set of five debts, run through both the snowball and the avalanche method. The month-by-month gap, what the difference is actually worth, and how to pick.
- [Sinking Funds Categories List: 28 Things to Save For](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/sinking-funds-categories-list/): 28 sinking fund categories with realistic annual ranges and the monthly amount that funds each one, plus a worked starter set totalling $455 a month and what to do when that is more than you have.
- [A Zero-Based Budget Example You Can Copy ($4,200/Month Take-Home)](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/zero-based-budget-example/): A complete zero-based budget on $4,200 a month, every line filled in and summing to zero, plus how to build yours, how to close a negative gap, and the three months it does not work.
- [30-Day No-Spend Challenge: The Rules, Written Down](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/30-day-no-spend-challenge-rules/): The actual rules of a 30-day no-spend challenge: what counts as essential, why you need one small pre-approved allowance, what it realistically saves, and what to do with the money on day 30.
- [How to Split Bills When One Partner Earns More Than the Other](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/split-bills-when-one-partner-earns-more/): Split shared bills by share of income, not 50/50. The one-line formula, three worked income pairs, what counts as a shared bill, and the four ways proportional splitting goes wrong.
- [What to Do With Your First $1,000 (A Decision Order, Not a List)](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/what-to-do-with-your-first-1000/): Employer match, starter cushion, expensive debt, then investing. A ranked order for your first $1,000, with the employer-match arithmetic worked out and the cases where the order changes.
- [How to Budget When You Get Paid Every Two Weeks (Including the 3-Paycheck Months)](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/budget-biweekly-paycheck/): Paid every two weeks? You get 26 checks a year, not 24. Here is the arithmetic, how to find your two 3-paycheck months, and how to build a budget two checks can cover.
- [Understanding Money](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/understanding-money/): There are only three things you can do with money: spend, save, or invest. Plus the fourth category that runs compounding in reverse, and why gross versus net income breaks so many budgeting rules.
- [8 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/8-simple-steps-to-financial-freedom/): Eight steps in a specific order, and the order is what makes it work. From knowing your four numbers to growing income, with the reasoning for why each step comes where it does.

## Pages

- [Terms of Service](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/terms/): The terms governing your use of newmoneyplaybook.com and anything you buy from it, including digital downloads, acceptable use, liability and how disputes are handled.
- [Disclaimer](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/disclaimer/): New Money Playbook publishes general educational information about money, not regulated financial advice. Here's what that means before you act on anything you read here.
- [Affiliate Disclosure](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/affiliate-disclosure/): Some links on New Money Playbook are affiliate links that may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Here's exactly how that works and how it affects what we recommend.
- [Refund Policy](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/refund-policy/): New Money Playbook sells digital downloads, so the usual return rules don't apply. Here's when you can get a refund, how to request one, and what happens to your download access.
- [About](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/about/): New Money Playbook publishes plain-English money guides for people on ordinary incomes — no hype, no jargon, no get-rich-quick. Here's who writes it and how the site pays for itself.
- [Contact](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/contact/): Get in touch with New Money Playbook. Email contact@newmoneyplaybook.com for article questions, corrections or partnership enquiries — we aim to reply within two business days.
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## Products

- [The New Money Playbook Starter Kit](https://newmoneyplaybook.com/product/starter-kit/): One spreadsheet, ten working tabs. The budget, sinking fund, debt payoff, buffer, rent, grocery and no-spend tools from every method we publish — already built, with the formulas in place. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice or Numbers. No macros, nothing locked.

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