How To Budget Properly: 12 Simple Ways

Always Think About Large Purchases

Take a week to consider it if a purchase is actually something you require or not. Is there a payment plan (for example, a car loan or £100 loan) that will throw your budget off?

Will this have an impact on your savings? How would this help you in your daily life? Is the advantage worth the price?

Consider the advantages to ensure that it adds value to your life rather than causes financial strain. If you forget about it after a week, it’s a pretty strong indication that you didn’t need it.

Don’t Spend Above Your Means

Getting into debt can be a difficult cycle to break out of. You end up paying more in interest than you would have had you waited or saved.

If you can’t afford anything, put it off until the following week. Plan ahead if you want to go on vacation. Regularly save to avoid throwing your budget off.

After a vacation, eating super noodles for four months is surely not your idea of “living your best life.”

Have A Lower Credit Card Limit Or Overdraft

High-limit credit cards and overdrafts are easy to accumulate and difficult to pay off. Limit your temptation!

To avoid becoming imprisoned, keep your credit limit modest and pay it off more frequently.

Stick to a limit that you can pay off all at once as a decent rule of thumb (eg. using an emergency fund). That way, you can pay for your items with little or no interest while also boosting your credit.

Budget Down To Zero

Budgeting to zero means that your revenue minus your expenses equal zero when you establish your budget.

When you budget to zero, every pound you earn is put to work, whether it’s in savings or a loan payment. You don’t offer yourself any extra padding or buffer. This is a novel approach to gaining ultimate financial control.

Spending every pound you make is not the same as budgeting to zero. It also doesn’t mean you’re locked into your monthly categories.

On the contrary, it’s a terrific way to start a savings program by including your savings in your budget and keeping that budget flexible enough to adjust to life’s unexpected twists and turns.

Challenge Yourself To No Spending

This is also known as a spending freeze, spending fast, or a spending challenge. Whatever you call it, the concept is the same: don’t spend money on something that isn’t absolutely necessary.

You can go without spending for a week, a month, or even a year! It may appear extreme, but it’s a highly effective technique to jolt your system, cut spending patterns, and shift your money thinking.

Begin your no-spend challenge by writing down what qualifies as a requirement and how long you plan to go without spending. Make it more enjoyable by competing with your best friends or family members to see who can save the most.

Avoid Paying Fees

Do you need both an Apple Music and a Spotify subscription? What about Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and traditional cable? Most likely not. Those ‘just £10 a month’ fees quickly pile up.

Take a look at your banking if you want to avoid expenses. How much do you spend on monthly fees and how much do you pay in transactions on top of that? You may be shocked to see how much you are actually paying for subscription services.

Add in additional film rentals and you could be spending well over £100 just on TV subscriptions on top of your regular TV and broadband package. Think about the ones that you actually use and perhaps rotate around them.

You don’t really need them all at the same time. So before you sign up for a new one, cancel the other. 

Meal Plan 

Planning your meals and keeping a grocery list are two of the easiest ways to save money.

You won’t overbuy products that will go bad in your fridge (and then throw them out – a waste of food and money) if you plan what you need for the week. You’ll probably eat healthier as well because you won’t buy bad foods that don’t fit into your meal plan.

Choose recipes with similar ingredients so that your shopping list matches your budget.

Do Your Food Shop Online

If you’ve ever gone grocery shopping on an empty stomach, you know how many unnecessary items end up in your basket. These small £2-£5 expenditures might sometimes account for the majority of your supermarket bill.

Have you ever gone to the produce department and felt forced to change your eating habits, putting vegetables you can barely spell in your trolley only to have 75 percent of them go bad in your fridge?

Most grocery stores allow you to shop click and collect your groceries at the store or have them delivered to your home. Shopping for groceries online not only saves you time and eliminates impulse purchases.

You may usually save your grocery list for future visits, which will help you keep your grocery spending consistent.

Always Pay Yourself First

Set up automated transfers or put money aside each payday to account for your bills, but more crucially, for YOU. Future-you will be quite delighted if you put money into your savings account every payday before you start to spend your hard-earned money.

Even tiny sums can add up to something greater, allowing you to take that trip or pay for that emergency engine repair on your automobile. Perhaps it will one day assist you in purchasing a home?

In either case, paying yourself first ensures that you prioritise yourself and recognise that you are the only one who deserves your hard-earned money.

Bear in mind that if you have debts to pay down, it may be a better choice to use this payment to clear these first and then start your savings. 

Always Compare 

Name products often cost 8-9 percent more every supermarket trip than generic brands. This may not seem like a lot per item. However, it can quickly pile up on a single shopping trip. Consider how much money you spend on a branded product every year if you go shopping twice a month.

Consider whether that Name Brand item is truly worth the extra money. It’s sometimes worth paying a bit more for a high-quality item that won’t need to be replaced as frequently.

When you pay extra, you want to make sure you’re getting quality rather than merely brand real estate.

Compare and contrast retail and name brands. What are the nutrients in food, for example?

Are they nearly identical, with the same ingredients and daily intake values? If that’s the case, what’s the point of spending more money on essentially the same thing?

Link Your Spending To Your Work

You put in long hours to earn your money. People rarely relate the money they spend to the effort that went into making it. So you buy that £100 pair of shoes without giving it any thought.

However, if you consider how much labour those shoes will require, you could reconsider their value.

This is how you do it: Figure out how much you get paid every hour. Divide your annual wage by 52 weeks, then by the number of hours you work every week.

Then, when you’re purchasing something, calculate how many labor hours it will require.

So the shoes aren’t cheap at all. They take 3 hours and 38 minutes to complete.

This is a simple method to reframe your money mindset by thinking about your complete budget in this way. This can work great when you want t make larger purchases too.

For example, if you are looking to go on vacation and need to create a budget, you could work out how many hours of overtime you need to commit to in order to pay for your trip. 

Treat Yourself When You Reach Your Goals 

Budgeting is about more than simply discipline. It’s a tool to help you achieve your objectives, do what you want, and live the life you want.

So have a good time. Make the process fun by rewarding yourself for sticking to your budget. It will transform your perception of budgeting from a job to a pleasurable hobby.

These tips should help you to create and stick to a budget. Do you have any other tips that could help? Please share them in the comments below. 

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