Budgeting your Lifestyle with 4 Easy Tips

It can be easy to bury your head in the sand during financial difficulty, but it’s pivotal for us to address our money situation. There are numerous techniques that we can all use to our advantage.

One of the most important budgeting tactics is to incorporate it into our everyday life. By doing so, it will allow it to accumulate significance and subsequently save us a heap of cash in the long run. What things can we do to make a change?

Note it Down

In an era of phone applications, laptops and a lack of communication it seems as though there’s still relevance for our pen and paper. Dig out your pen and get writing down your budget.

How to Budget

You’re probably thinking, ‘note what down?’.. Well, simply write down your incoming funds and the typical outgoing expenses. You may want to do this thoroughly with bank statements at hand. You’ll want to work out how much it costs to pay household bills, travel expenses, phone bills, leisure, living costs and more. The first stage is working it all out. Secondly, you’ll write it down, and it’s your job to remove any unnecessary bills or outgoings. This will work far better than you expect, not only will you be able to manage your outgoings, eradicate silly spending but you’ll also be mindful of what your money goes on.

Use Apps & Websites

There’s an abundance of useful tools and money-saving resources at our fingertips. We can roam the Internet and capitalise on deals within seconds. It’s not all about great deals or promotions, though, you can use other platforms to assist your budgeting.

·      Top Cashback

·      Money Supermarket

·      My Favourite Voucher Codes

·      Spendometer

Above is a short list of handy apps we can download on our phone, each of them all have websites too. Top Cashback allows you to accrue money into an account every time you spend via their site. For instance, you can order from Asos and be rewarded 10.5% of your purchase in cash, you can then withdraw all of the money you save. Money Supermarket allows you to compare insurance, travel, phones and much more. Spendometer helps you keep track of your budget as well as calculate everything you need to. And of course, My Favourite Voucher Codes is a great money-saving technique. We provide all online users with a chance to save money and simultaneously raise for charities. Save in seconds with codes that cut costs on every element of your life, food shopping, gadgets, gifts and more. Use our Sainsburys promo codes with £18 off your shopping, it’s also possible to save money with Missguided promotional codes and Debenhams coupon codes.

Compare Prices

Don’t purchase the first thing that you see, take your time to shop around. Most people don’t have time for much these days but saving money is something we should all have time for us to do. It doesn’t take long these days either, so look around. Use the Internet or go from store to store to find the best offers available to you. If you have an expensive phone tariff, then look for another one and always keep in mind that you could swap your expensive products or essentials for alternatives. Read our article on Approved Foods who tackle a loophole allowing you to buy quality products that have passed their ‘best before date’ but not the ‘use by date’. There are also shops such as Aldi and other stores that don’t put an emphasis on brands that could cut your weekly food bill in half.

Luxuries

Distinguish between necessities and luxuries as this is a key element to saving money. Do you really need to indulge in takeaways and eating out throughout the week? Picking up food on the go and coffees on your way through the city centre gets pricey. Start prepping your food and buying in everything you need to make tasty food all week. You may want to forget about paying extra on a specific car or that sleek phone handset, but this is part of budgeting that isn’t ‘one size fits all’. It’s completely respective to the disposable income you have, how much you earn and what is going out. But that is why you budget and spend within your means.

Implementing these techniques will allow you to start a healthier relationship with your money, rather than avoid it and become reluctant to check your balance you’ll be able to tackle it head first. You may even be able to start saving for the important things in your life with some extra cash you managed to free up. The small changes could transform your lifestyle with them being the difference between extra savings and not. Start using these tips when you are looking to budget your lifestyle. 

 By Daniel Treasure, 19th September 2016