She's a Lot Ambition Looks Good on You.

---

Welcome to Your 30 Day Money Bootcamp 🫡

If your money strategy right now is to just not look at your bank account, it's time to change that.

It’s easy for finances to feel like this huge, impossible puzzle, but here’s the thing: when you have a plan, money stops being this scary, confusing thing and starts feeling like a tool to actually get you closer to the life you want.

That’s exactly why I started my 30-Day Money Basics Bootcamp series on TikTok. Each day, I’m breaking down the real money skills school never taught us — so you can budget smarter, save intentionally, invest with confidence, and grow your financial independence.

Today, we’re starting with one of the most important steps: how to create a money plan that actually fits your life.

Step 1: Start With the Big Picture

Before you look at numbers, start by thinking about the big things you want in life. I’m talking about goals like:

• Buying a house
• Starting a family
• Retiring early
• Quitting your 9–5 to start a business
• Traveling and experiencing life to the fullest
• Creating generational wealth

Why start here? Because knowing your priorities helps you make smart choices about your money right now. It shows you where you’re willing to make sacrifices and where you’re not. For example, if traveling and experiences are your priority in your 20s, that might take precedence over maxing out a retirement account, And that’s okay - it’s about what matters to you.

Take some time to pick your top 1-3 priorities right now. You'll want to cover basics like building an emergency fund and at least contributing to a retirement fund for your future no matter what your goals are - but exactly how much you contribute and where the rest of your money goes will be different based on your goals.

Step 2: Break Big Goals Into Short-Term Steps

Long-term goals can feel overwhelming if you try to tackle them all at once. The trick is to break them down into smaller, actionable steps you can actually start working on today. Here’s what that might look like for some common big goals:

Buying a house:

• Improve your credit score
• Save for a down payment
• Increase your income or side hustle earnings to cover a mortgage

Starting a family:

• Build a larger emergency fund (to cover more people)
• Start a pregnancy or birth savings fund
• Start saving/investing for your future children's education

Retiring early:

• Maximize contributions to retirement accounts
• Explore different tax-advantaged accounts (401k, Roth IRA, HSA, etc.)
• Reduce unnecessary spending
• Consider a side income or investments for passive income

Quitting your 9–5 / starting a business:

• Save a business fund to cover at least 6–12 months of runway
• Pay down high-interest debt so you’re financially flexible

Traveling and experiencing life in your 20s

• Save an emergency fund (in case of layoffs or injury/illness)
• Save a travel fund
• Learn to maximize credit card rewards to enable more travel

Even if you’re not at the stage of tackling all of these, this approach helps you think strategically about what’s most important right now.

Other immediate goals for anyone starting out, regardless of your long-term goals, include:

1. Start budgeting
2. Pay off high-interest debt
3. Build an emergency fund
4. Begin investing for retirement
5. Save for short-term goals (travel, a car, a course)

Breaking your goals down this way gives you clarity. Instead of juggling a million “money priorities,” you can focus on the steps that matter most today.

Step 3: Align Your Money With Your Goals

Once you’ve got clarity, it’s time to make your money work for you. That means:

• Cover your essential expenses first
• Allocate money toward short-term goals
• Set aside funds for long-term investments

The split will look different for everyone. Someone saving for a home might allocate more to savings each month, while someone prioritizing early retirement might lean heavier on investments. The key is that every dollar has a purpose and is moving you closer to your goals. So how do you figure out how much to put towards what? That's our next step.

Step 4: Turn Your Goals Into Actionable Numbers

Knowing what you want is one thing, but knowing how much to save, spend, and invest is another. That’s where having a system or tool really helps.

For example, maybe you want to save for a house, travel, and max out your 401(k) match - how much goes to each goal each month? How do you balance fun spending without feeling guilty?

That’s exactly why I created the FREE Budget Worksheet. It’s a free tool that lets you:

• Plug in your income and essential expenses
• Automatically see how much you can allocate to saving, investing, and fun
• Adjust allocations for your priorities in the second tab - like if you want more fun money or more investments

It takes the guesswork out of your plan so you can confidently move forward without stressing about numbers. Here's how it works:

After you put in all your necessary expenses (total monthly costs) - all your remaining funds will be automatically split into the buckets you see. You can then follow this exactly, or make adjustments to help it match your goals better. For example, you may not be focused on investing post-tax (just investing in your 401k pre-tax), so maybe you choose to only invest $100 a month and split the rest between your savings and fun money.

Use the FREE Budget Worksheet

Takeaway

A money plan isn’t about perfection — it’s about clarity, intentionality, and knowing exactly what your money is doing for you. When you start with your big-picture goals, break them down into actionable steps, and align your dollars accordingly, finances go from confusing to empowering.

In the next few episodes of Money Bootcamp, we'll be diving into how to stick to a budget, emergency funds, and the different bank accounts you should have and how to organize them. Follow along on TikTok so you don't miss out!

Wishing you a rich life,

Lora at She's a Lot