To start the new year, I decided to purchase the Zicoto budget planner. I wanted to give you a review of what I think so far and if it is worth it. Currently, I have the Go Girl Bullet Journal, but wanted something to budget my groceries every month.

Mint App vs Budget Book

I have been using the Mint app for many years and it is great. You can track your bills, savings, monthly spending and set budgets. A new goal for 2022 is to budget my groceries and take out, since I spend a ton on it. With Mint I can do all this but many times it takes a day or two to update how much I recently spent. I then forget to split the bill cost (for example, half groceries and half household). When I make a purchase at Target, for example, it automatically labels Target as shopping, when many times it is mostly groceries and some household and personal things on my list.

I decided to try a budget book that I can manually write in. It gives me more control. I can write in how much I spent the minute I click purchase in my cart. This method is easier for me to manage. For online shoppers, it makes it a breeze. You learn to take out your budget book and immediately put in your expenses. I split the costs of groceries, household, personal and restaurants. At the end of. the month I can tally up the total cost of my expenses and see if I have gone over budget.

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Budget Planner

I chose the Zicoto Planner for many reasons. I love the color, the size and the pretty flamingo logo, on the front cover. Flamingos are so cute! But aside from that, I wanted something very simple since my focus is on budgeting groceries. There is a place for savings, debt tracker, bill tracker and daily expenses. One thing it does not come with is a monthly calendar. For me this is not a problem, since I have a bullet journal for this. It all depends on your goals and focus.

Some Highlights of the Zicoto Planner

• 2 bookmarks and elastic band
• pages are numbers
• extra pages at the end for notes
• pen holder
• pocket for receipts
• stickers and sticker tabs for the year!
• financial goals
• financial strategy
• bill tracker
• savings tracker
• debt tracker
• monthly income/savings/budgeting for each month
• daily expenses for each month
• month in review with quotes at the end for motivation!

Cons

The only cons so far is that I hate having 2 journals (bullet journal. and budget book). I wanted something very specific, ready to go and something that gives me structure and guidance. Which is why I decided to. get a separate planner for budgeting.

Overall

Overall, I really love my budget book and so far I am on top of my budget goals! On top of that, I have made goals to pay some credit cards by a certain date, as well. It is very motivation and exciting!

More Planners

Do you use a budget book? If so, how do you plan?