End Of Month Budget Helpers
As the month creeps towards its end, how do you manage to stay on track and not over spend, creating problems for next month’s budget. You must place the strategies in your budget for those budget-breaking moments. It is these that can help rescue an over spend and save you going into debt.
Flexi budget helper
When you create your budget, you must include a portion of money that is flexible, not set for anything except emergencies. It is where you are able to use money to pay for that extra treat that you needed, or the milk you ran out of, as well as grocery money for the week.
This money can get you through those budget stretching days when you have nowhere else to turn. But knowing how much to put in this flexible area will depend on the money that you have spare in your budget; I like a minimum of £15 per month, it covers stamps, the odd treat or just there for the odd emergency.
Grocery budget helper
If you are looking for ways to allow your grocery budget to manage the whole month, then you must split the money equally over the weeks and stick to this amount. The best way to do this is to pay for items using cash, withdraw your grocery money weekly and don’t go over this amount. It will ensure that at the end of the month you have the same amount of money for your groceries as you did the first week of the month.
Groceries is a difficult area to manage because of the different items that you need over the different period, some weeks seem to need more than others and this is why it is important that you are able to plan these needs into your budget. If you know that over the month you will need washing powder and toilet roll, then you need to spread this over the weeks to ensure that you have enough money each week for groceries too.
Your grocery budget is a high percentage of where your income is allocated, but sometimes this is too high. If you are looking to cut down the amount of money that you are spending overall, then the grocery is often the easiest to reduce. It is possible to have a healthy diet with a relatively low-budget per person living in the home.
Therefore, if you plan your budget there are sometimes ways to allow for those little budget breakers that can occur over the month. However, by knowing these might spring up and planning for them can save your budget, when it can start to feel stretched closer to the end of the month? By using the flexi section, it can often be a lifesaver, a way to find a few pounds to buy the item that you have forgotten to take into account in your budget at the beginning of the month. If you don’t use it, then it is possible to roll the money over into the next month, reducing the amount needed in the budget to cover next month’s expenses.
