Budgets aren't just something to do every now and then. You should take a budget and make it work for you. Then make sure you use a budget for the rest of your life. I will be the first to admit that budgets are easy to fall off of. It is so very easy to get things in order and then stop. But soon you will see, as I have, that things go quickly awry when you let that budget gather dust bunnies.
The key is finding new ways to keep budgeting a top priority. I find that habit works for many people. For over two years, I simply made it a habit to review our budget, our bills and our spending twice a week. This was easy as I had several short term goals (paying off that debt) that I looked at often. If you have goals, it is easy to keep looking at how close you are getting to them. Set yourself some short term goals. You might simply want to save up enough to take a trip or buy a new jacket. But let that goal be the drive that keeps you looking at your banking accounts, your debt and your budget.
Everyone should review their checking accounts and budget on a weekly basis. If you are especially tight and use your checking quite often, you might consider doing this every other day. With automated tellers and the internet, this is easily done.
I've found that the cash method is the easiest way to keep a budget working. You only use your checking to pay the bills and maybe your gasoline (maybe), but everything else is in cash. You simply give yourself an allowance. This is all the money you have for this pay period.
Somehow, we respect cash a lot more than we do a paper check or little piece of plastic. In my family, we actually started saving up a lot of cash. We find that it isn't easy to overspend when all the money you have to spend is in your wallet.
I may not keep a very detailed budget when it comes to spending beyond our bills and savings, but I have found that the cash method works well for us. We can simply look in our wallets and say, "I don't have enough money for that right now." It's a different way of thinking than when you whip out that little plastic card. I can't tell you how much we spend on junk food from the gas station each week, but I can tell you that we don't overspend our allowance amounts.
This makes our budget work.
That is one of the things you must find in order to budget for life -- something that works for you and your family. It is often too difficult to track every minute penny in a busy family, so allowances work for some. For other families, tracking works great and is a family project. You simply must find the way that you can budget for life.
It is worth it. Remember those goals -- with a budget, you'll have a lifetime of goals that you will achieve.
Martin Lukac represents RateTake Refinance Rates marketplace. RateTake matches consumers with multiple lenders offering low rates. Got too much credit debt? Get Debt Help and you'd be surprised what we can do together.
