Key takeaways
- Budget off your three-year average income, not your last check.
- Write two budgets, one for a lean year and one for a strong year, then live in the middle.
- If the word "budget" makes you flinch, rename it. We call ours invoicing.
- Every leftover dollar goes to a cash reserve until you have six to nine months of expenses covered.
- Get your numbers out of your own head and in front of someone who will ask about them.
In 2009, the power company shut our lights off while we were upstairs playing with our two boys.
Bill was selling real estate by day and bartending by night, 15 to 16 hours a day. He sold three or four homes that entire year. We had two car payments, two student loans, $60,000 in credit card debt and no budget. We filed for bankruptcy that year. The debt was discharged in 2013.
We’re telling you this because what follows didn’t come from a textbook. It came from the bottom of the barrel, and it’s how we have run a commission-based household ever since.
If you earn commissions, run your own business or get paid in waves, your income is going to swing. Your mortgage is not. Here’s how to close that gap and move from scarcity to abundance, without taking yourself too seriously along the way.
Why budgeting with irregular income feels impossible
Most budgeting advice assumes the same check lands every two weeks. Commission income doesn’t work that way.
The National Association of REALTORS® 2026 Member Profile reports that the typical agent closed nine transaction sides in 2025, with a median gross income of $59,200. Nine closings across twelve months means some months bring in zero.
So the question isn’t whether you’ll have a dry month. It’s whether your budget was built for one.
Step 1: Change your relationship with the word "budget"
For a lot of people, "budget" lands like a diet: restriction, guilt, someone grading you. We lived without one for years because looking at the numbers felt worse than not knowing.
Here’s the reframe: a budget is a decision about where your money goes before it goes there. Without one, your money still has a plan. It’s just not yours. For us, it was time to look money in the eye and tell it where to go.
If the word still makes your shoulders tense, rename it. In our house, we stopped "paying bills" and started "paying invoices." The marketing invoice. The lead generation invoice. The mortgage invoice. We also stopped "spending" and started "investing": in ourselves, in our family, in our business and in our clients. Spending disappears. Investing compounds. Same numbers, very different energy. Coaching clients have told us they use "the financial blueprint" or "the abundance plan."
Call it whatever gets you to open the spreadsheet. Make it a money date if that helps. Candles optional!
Step 2: Build your budget from a three-year average
Your last commission check is not your income. Neither is your strongest month.
If you’ve been in business three years or more, add up your gross income for those three years and divide by three. That’s the number you budget against. If your last three years were $80,000, $120,000 and $100,000, you budget on $100,000 a year, or about $8,333 a month.
Newer to commission income? Use your most conservative realistic estimate and revisit it every quarter.
Then sort your expenses into two groups:
- Fixed expenses (the roof, walls and foundation): mortgage or rent, utilities, phones, car payments, insurance, groceries, tuition and continuing education.
- Variable expenses: restaurants, subscriptions, gym memberships, clothing, hair and nails, entertainment.
Variable expenses are where money disappears. Track them for at least 90 days (a full year is better), then divide by the number of months to get a monthly average. You’ll be surprised. We were. Turns out "a few lunches out" is a lifestyle.
Step 3: Write two budgets and live in the middle
One budget breaks the first time your income swings. Write two:
- The strong-year budget: what your life costs when the year is running at full speed.
- The lean-year budget: what your life costs in your thinnest year. Begin with the end in mind and decide in advance what goes first: the highlights, the dinners out, the concert tickets.
Then aim for the average of the two. In strong months, the gap between what you spend and what you earn goes to reserves. In lean months, the lean budget is already written, so cutting back is a plan instead of a panic.
A lean month is also a signal to work the income side: more prospecting, more conversations, more follow-up. Spending less is only half the lever.
As for tools, a spreadsheet works. So do apps like YNAB or Monarch Money, or the budgeting features built into most bank apps. The tool matters less than the habit of opening it. An app you never open is just clutter.
Step 4: Fund the abundance fund first
Most people call it an emergency fund. We call ours the abundance fund, because we’d rather plan for abundance than for an emergency. Seeing the pattern? The relationship to money and words used matters. So does having cash when the AC dies in August.
Any money left at the end of the month goes there. Ten dollars counts. The early milestones are $500, then $1,000, then $1,500. The long-term target is six to nine months of expenses in cash.
That reserve is what lets you hold your budget through a slow quarter without reaching for a credit card. For the record, we went years without credit cards after bankruptcy. Today they’re back, on our terms: used wisely, for travel points that fund the experiences we love. Cash reserve first. Points second.
Bonus: Get your numbers out of your own head
Budgets break in private. Share yours with someone who will ask about it: a coach, a mentor or an accountability partner who handles money better than you do today. After bankruptcy, we put our budget in front of someone outside our marriage, and it changed how we showed up for it.
Then keep learning. The books that moved our money mindset from scarcity to abundance (dog-eared, highlighted, slightly coffee-stained):
- The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
- MONEY Master the Game by Tony Robbins
- You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
What this looks like 26 years in
We’ve been in Atlanta real estate for more than 26 years. Our business runs on relationships, not transactions: 92% of it comes from referrals, many of our clients have been with us for 15 to 25 years, and some have bought and sold more than $5 million in real estate with us over that time.
That kind of long game only works when the household behind it is stable. A budget is what lets us show up for clients from calm instead of from pressure to close. Clients feel that difference. So do we.
Watch the conversation
We sat down and talked through this system in 2021. The numbers have changed since then. So has the lighting. The system hasn’t.
Up next: Part 2: How to Split Your Real Estate Commission Check (The 30/30/40 System)
This article shares our personal experience and is for education only. It is not financial, tax or legal advice, and we are not CPAs or financial advisors. Figures cited were current when we published and can change. Talk with a licensed financial professional before making changes to your own finances.
P.S. JAM Worldwide exists to help 25 people and families every year build legacy and wealth through real estate, and to coach the next generation of agents to build businesses that sustain and prosper without the burnout. 26 years in, referrals are still how this family business grows. If this helped, who in your world could use it next? Send it their way.
