Experiences tend to stay with you. They will take on new meaning with time, and provide happy memories you can treasure. A physical object may lose some of the newness with time, especially an object like food or drink that will be gone. The pleasure of an experience, however, tends to last longer. You may want to save for bigger experiences instead of spending extra income on goods one month. For example, sacrifice your monthly dinner with your wife for a few months. Put the money you’re saving towards a family vacation.
Instead of getting front row tickets for a baseball game, opt for seats in back and go twice. You’ll get two outings for the price of one, and will probably have a better time without the pressure. If you spent a lot on something, you may feel obligated to enjoy it, creating stress if anything inadvertently goes wrong. When it comes to food, consider spending less when eating out. Make a meal out of appetizers instead of ordering a main course. You’ll enjoy the small treat just as much, if not more, than a major indulgence, and you’ll save some money in the process.
Also, with some purchases, prices may go down if you wait. If you want the latest version of the iPhone, for example, you may find the phone goes down quite a bit a few months after its release.
Jot down how much you spent at lunch, and on things like a coffee on the way to the train. Calculate this number at the end of the day. Calculate all your totals for the day at the end of the week. You may be surprised at how much money you spend on small, easily avoidable purchases. For example, say you spend $3. 00 on coffee 5 days a week on your way to work. That’s $15 a week, which results in $60 a month. You can easily cut out this expense by investing in a thermos and taking coffee from home.
You should also consider expenses that aren’t necessary, but that you pay for each month. This includes eating out, shopping, entertainment, as well as food in general. You may not know exactly how much you spend each month, but try to get a rough estimate. If you have an online bank account, you may be able to go through your purchases that month and get a more accurate sense of how much you spend on unnecessary expenses. There are lots of budget tracking programs available to help you understand where your money is going. For instance, you could use Intuit’s mint. com to keep track of your expenses.
Your number may be lower than you expect. You may be surprised to find that you do not have a lot of disposable income. Realizing this can help you learn to spend your money more wisely in the future. You may realize you end up with a negative number. This is a sign you’re spending more than you earn. While this can be startling to realize, take this as an opportunity to take a hard look at your spending habits. Are you accruing credit card debt? Where are you spending most of your money? Do you need a higher paying job? If you’re spending more than you earn, you’ll have to cut back on expenses or seek work that can pay for your lifestyle.
You can give yourself a rough breakdown of how much you will spend on extras each month. You’ll have to decide what you really enjoy. If you could stand to miss Friday night happy hour a couple times a month, but love taking your wife out to dinner on Sundays, take this into consideration. Let’s say you have $500 a month of disposable income. As Sunday dinners are important to you, allocate $150 of this to eating out. This should give you more than enough for a few nice meals, and a bit of extra if you want order pizza on a busy weeknight. You’ll have $350 left that you can allocate to different extras and treats throughout the month or save to put toward a larger goal, like a retirement fund or a downpayment on a home. Write your budget down and track your expenses during the month, trying not to go over-budget. During the first few months of budgeting, it may be hard to stick to your budget and you may occasionally overspend in some areas. That’s okay. Just keep at it, and eventually you’ll find it easier to spend within your limits.
As a bonus, you’ll pay less to heat and cool a smaller space. Plus, it will be easier to clean!
Make sure your insurance provider is applying all of the discounts you qualify for!
Try to plan meals for the week. On Sunday, for example, you can make a big batch of something like soup of casserole. You can eat this for lunch each week, bringing a Tupperware container to the office. Plan dinners as well. If you don’t like to cook, keep it simple. You can do breakfast for dinner, and make yourself a quick omelet. You can also make an easy, healthy sandwich with whole wheat bread, veggies, and lean proteins.
If you always have basic food staples and kitchen and bathroom supplies on hand, you’ll save yourself an extra $5 to $10 making these purchases during your regular shopping trip.
If recreational shopping is something you really enjoy, there are ways to fit it into a healthy budget. You could agree to shop recreationally once a month, and make sure you do not go over your clothing budget for that month. This way, you’ll get to do something you enjoy without ruining your budget.
