Creating a budget is very important in managing your money well. If you're not like me, creating a budget probably isn't any fun. I enjoy making a budget and finding ways to somehow beat it every month. I know, I'm extremely dorky.
Here are tips on how to beat your budget from Wise Bread:
- Be realistic with your budget. Don't try and create some kind of dream budget that would be impossible to achieve.
- Include entertainment in your budget and be realistic about it. You need to have entertainment in your budget. I understand that sometime it does need to be cut for a little bit at a time, but you can't just cut fun out for months at a time.
- Adjust your budget regularly. Try and have a monthly finance meeting with your family so that everyone is on track. Your budget won't be perfect, so do slight adjustments every so often to see what you need to work on.
- Allow for budget busters. Make sure you set up an emergency fund, because not everything will fit into your budget is something big and unexpected happened.
- Give the budget a chance and some time to perfect itself. Your budgets not going to be perfect, hopefully you will constantly improve it.
- Make progress with your budget. Hopefully your budget will motivate you to lower your spending and improve your finances.
Any tips on budgeting? How did you start your budget?
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I think you pretty much covered all bases, especially with the emergency fund, because I will be bold enough to say that 89-90% of the reasons a budget fails is because there's not enough wiggle room to plan for emergencies, and they can (and at times will) come very often. Same with Murphy (smaller, non-emergency unexpected situations you didnt budget for). A good tip is to get someone involved, if possible. A spouse, maybe a friend in a similar situation. Just like with exercise, having someone else makes you more responsible, accountable and less likely to slip, fall, and stay out of the wagon.
I agree…some sort of "fun" money needs to be put in a budget…I sometimes run short on this one, especially when it is a heavy "murphy" month!
I've pretty much always had a budget in one form or another. I'm a firm believer in flexible budgeting – things will always "pop up" during any given month so better to be flexible than let it "ruin" your budget. You know what they say about "best laid plans"!
These are great tips!! I cannot stress the importance of budgeting and saving to the people around me, you never know when you will need it! I first started years ago when I saved up money to buy my first car!