Living Budget
A budget is not living on its own, but rather it says that a budget that is adaptive, changing over time.
Maintaining Your Budget
A Living Budget is not difficult to maintain as it may seem. It is just a matter of sitting down every month, a couple of hours, and updating the budget you created, adding any incomes not previously recorded, but more importantly, expenses that may have been missed. Not all that hard and all you need is to keep a spending log and every week putting expenses in categories. That's it.
To help you meet your budget goals there are plenty of ways to cut expenses, some more common than others. Being thrifty, is more common than many may thing, including consciously saving money. Some of the best savings tricks suggest making a conscious effort to save before spending it and monitoring what you spend along the way.
If you haven't already created a budget, its time to create a budget (see Budgeting 101). List all of your monthly expenses. Food expenses can fluctuate, it is advisable to focus on these expenses since there isn't much you can do to get a discount on your rent or mortgage as they tend to be fixed expenses. To help you cut expenses here are some suggestions:
Use the Newspaper
The newspaper can provide many opportunities for you to save some money. You can find some good deals on a variety of items if you look for sales that are in the Sunday, or weekly paper. Many stores advertise their sales and specials, but if you aren't looking for them, you could be missing out on opportunities to save some money.
Savings Clubs or Coupon Swaps
Some people like savings clubs. Savings clubs trade information, coupons or they buy a large lot of an item which is the split up to get great savings on some more common items, like toilet paper or canned goods. Large warehouse stores like Costco or Sam's offer great deals to folks who buy in bulk. You do have to purchase a membership, but the savings are well worth it. In a club, one member gets a membership, but all club members share in the savings. A tip well worth checking out.
Coupons
You can save a great deal when you use coupons. But did you know that you can find coupons in more places than just the newspaper? Many businesses include coupons in their newsletter or coupon packets mailed to your home. The internet has many free coupon sites where you may need to print them or write down the code. Val Pak, Coupons.com, among other sites have free coupons that you can print and use in your favorite store. Do a search online for free coupons to find additional savings!
Know Store Policies
Know your store's policies regarding coupons. Some stores offer double coupons and some stores, like Wal-Mart will honor other stores' sales papers. Check with your favorite grocery store to find out what deals you can get. Many thrifty shoppers get great deals on their purchases because they know the policies that their store do not advertise.
NOTE: many so called experts tout double or tripple coupons. Well, they don't live here in Colorado where we don't have them. We only get face value of the coupon. So, before you listen to these so called experts, do your own research.
Keep a Shopping List and Stick to It!
This is important, but it is often not adhered to. Make a shopping list of the things you need and stick to it. Take the time to make a shopping list, use your coupons and sales papers to guide you. When you shop, ignore everything else and only get what is on your list. Impulse buying makes up a large part of excess spending. Nip it in the bud by sticking to your shopping list buying nothing else.
You can pay-off your credit cards, car loans, student loans, your mortgage, among other debts the slow, and old-fashioned way maybe ending up with a few thousand dollars saved for your retirement, or by using debt elimination programs, you can stop living Paycheck to Paycheck. Imagine how you will feel, when you wake up one morning and no more debts to pay.
John Cummuta has taught over 1 million people how to get out of debt using the money they earn in as little as 5 years. People more committed have become debt free in as little as 2 or 3 years allowing them to build wealth much sooner. You can read more about John Cummuta's story here.
Articles:
- title 1
- title 2
- title 3
- Wealth Defined
- Not a definition many people would consider.
- Table of Contents
- A Sitemap for all of the Debt related articles.
