Making a household budget is quintessential to financial planning. It is rather simple to come up with a budget. You have your income, you can make a list of expenses you cannot avoid and then decide how much you wish to save every month. Accordingly, you need to cut corners somewhere, invest your money or save, try to increase your income and you should always look for smarter ways to save on unavoidable expenses. The real challenge is to adhere to a household budget. Here is how you can approach the whole daunting challenge of financial planning.
- Don’t spend money when you don’t intend to and don’t have to. Impulsive buying is the biggest threat to savings. Adhere to your grocery list, abide by the budget every time you wish to buy something and you would stick to the math.
- Be firm with your goal to save. This goal may be yearly, quarterly or monthly. But you must break it down to the least possible denominator. Put aside some money every week and that must be untouched savings.
- Limit your use of plastic money, especially credit cards. Use cash and you would naturally run out of it once you have exhausted your budget. To facilitate this, transfer the amount you wish to save from one account to another right after your pay cheque gets credited.
- Savings is a never ending exercise. You may not notice this but the little amounts you spend regularly on the mundane routinely coffee, lunch and snack outside actually end up costing you more than a thousand bucks. If you are living in a major city, then this cost would be up to two thousand and possibly more. Cut down on this expense and you could have handsome savings. Take a homemade lunch to work, avoid one cup of coffee every day or skip a few snacks or meals at fancy restaurants or expensive eateries when you can do without them.
- Avoid debts. From personal loans to credit card debt, all these commitments will cost you dearly. Do some math and check out how much you have paid extra in the last year or years as interest. This entire amount could have been your savings.
- Don’t shop on weekends. It may seem to be a daunting challenge to shop on a weekday or at a particular time on a certain day of the week but that is how you would get some amazing deals. Always try to buy in bulk. Today, most homes have large refrigerators. You may not have larger than life freezers but you can stock up at least a fortnight’s worth of food. When you buy in such bulk, you are bound to save anywhere from 10% to 30% off normal prices.
