The Money Helper

If you are like most people you have tried to budget your money. And if you are like most people, somewhere along the line you have probably strayed from that budget. This article will discuss dome basic budgeting techniques that can be used to save you a few extra dollars and keep you on track.

Don’t commit your budget to memory only. You may be surprised to find out that many people do not write their budget down. This can be a recipe for disaster. No matter how good your memory may be, it will not hurt you to have a back up. It is good budgeting practice to write down how much money should be contributed to which expense. This will eliminate the use of the inevitable statement, “Oh, I forgot.”

Keep track of your spending. Another big mistake that people encounter when trying to stick to a budget is not keeping track of how much they have spent on certain things. This is one of the major keystones of creating and maintaining a budget. If you have $200 per month to spend on groceries then every time you go to the grocery store you should come home and note that you spent x amount of dollars on this date.

Hint: For expenses such as groceries, you may also want to keep track of the dates to monitor how many times you visit the grocery store. This can be a key factor in cutting down some of your expenses. We all have the itch to run to the grocery store when we run out of one particular item. This can really nickel and dime you if you let it. If you can, it is good practice to wait to buy your groceries in bulk on a day where there are sales going on. You could wind up saving yourself the extra trip and a little money as well.

Pack you lunch and breakfast if you can. If you are working in corporate America, this can be one of the most difficult things to do. Everyday someone is asking you if you’d like to go out and eat at the local restaurant for lunch and you don’t want to feel left out.

Consider this, if you spend $15 a day between your breakfast and lunch (which let’s face it, is probably a low ball figure) you are going to wind up spending $75 per week just on food alone. If you were to project that over the year, you are looking at spending close to $4000 on food at the office. And that’s not even counting dinner. Could you use an extra $4000 to be put towards something else in your life.

When you really think about it, it really makes sense to make your best effort to pack your breakfast and lunch and bring them with you to work. Make an attempt to do that once or twice a week and you might notice some extra money lying around.

Budgeting can be a frustrating task sometimes. You don’t get to be as spontaneous and do things that may come up at the spur of the moment. However, if you plan correctly and utilize some of these techniques you will be surprised at the amount of money you can save.