Let's face it, no one likes to budget. Not even me, and I've been a financial journalist for years.
A lot of folks, including some of my family members whom supposedly gave me my head for numbers, don't like to think about or manage their money.
It just seems to complicated. It doesn't have to be. You really only need to do two things to take control of your money.
1. Pay less for the things you already use
2. Get more bang for the bucks you already spend
3. Don't pay for things you don't want to pay for
I hope you aren't scratching your head just yet.
First, paying less for everything you already use. I want you to walk around your house with a pen and paper, and start looking in your cabinets and drawers. Write down the brand-name products, like shampoo, toilet paper, soup, etc. that you use regularly. Ignore all of the generics and store brands.
For us, it's Q-tips, Pert Plus for the hubby, Garnier Fructis for me (it conditions my hair like no other), and Tabasco hot sauce.
Now, the next few times you go shopping, take the list with you. Write down how much those items cost at each of the places where you regularly shop.
I did this exercise recently, and using my shampoo as an example, here are the results.
Garnier
Fructis, 25 oz. shampoo, cost $5.99 at Target, $7.29 at Walgreens, and
$4.96 at Wal-Mart.
Guess what. I now buy my shampoo only at Wal-Mart.I used to buy it at Target, just because I shop there more often. Why pay $1.03 more than I have to for every bottle?
In this case, a little bit of planning can free up a decent bit of money. You could save $10 or more a week just buying at the store where the prices are lowest. On caveat: Don't go driving across town to buy one bottle of shampoo.
Stock up or wait until you need something else from that store, then go.
If I want to save even more on that shampoo, I track down a coupon. I'm not a coupon clipper by nature, but I sometimes use a clipping service like CouponClippers. They stockpile coupons and can send you stacks of them for the specific
brands you buy.
Using the shampoo example again, I can usually get $2 off per bottle coupons for Garnier Fructis from the coupon clipping service. So my cost, if I buy at Walmart, goes down to $2.96 per bottle.
If you're on a tight budget, these two small changes can give you a little more wiggle room.
On to number two: Get more bang for the bucks you already spend.
This step can take many forms, but the basic principle is the same. It is a mode of thinking. View each dollar in your wallet as finite. Don't think about the fact that you can earn another one. Treat each of them as a precious, single entity. As such, try to get the most for each one of those dollars as you can.
For example, if you want to see a movie. You could pay full-price on a Friday night. Or, you could stretch that dollar just a little and go to a weekend matinee. Same movie, same theater, but $2 less a ticket. If you want to stretch that dollar even further, you could wait until it's out on DVD and either, buy the DVD (usually for the cost of two tickets or less), rent it on Netflix, or wait for it to show up at the library and get it for free.
If you are love to eat out- like me- you could just go out to eat whenever the mood strikes you. Or, you could stretch that dollar by going when you have a coupon from the local Valpak mailer. Or when they have a happy hour special, or you could go at lunch when the prices are lower. You still get to eat out but the dollar stretches just a little bit more.
See how this works? With a few minor changes to your way of thinking, the dollars go farther and last longer.
You can also apply this to your debt. If you have a mortgage, a student loan, and especially a credit card, consider paying half of your monthly minimum payment every two weeks instead of sending it all once a month. Paying every two weeks can lower the amount of interest you pay on your debts and can help you pay them off faster. Explore more of the pros and cons here.
And finally, don't pay for things you don't want to pay for.
I'm not advocating theft. I'm suggesting you look at your bank and credit card statements and see if there are any companies direct-debiting or automatically billing you. Do you want or use the service? If not, cancel the debit.
I recently did this and found that I was paying $7.95 a month for an Internet fax service I hadn't used in 6 months. My mistake cost me, but I soon canceled and haven't been paying the stupid tax since.
If your banks is charging excessive fees, it might be time to call customer service. a big culprit is courtesy overdraft protection. Hardly a courtesy if it costs you north of $30. If you run a slim balance, explore other options, like having the money moved from your saving account, or just not bouncing a check.
If you have a lot of bank fees-- ATMs, overdrafts, minimum balance, etc.-- it might just be high time to find another bank and another account that is more in line with your banking habits.
Do you have savings? How much if your bank paying in interest? Last time I checked, my bank was paying .05 percent. Yes, not even half of a percent. So, I moved my money into an online high-interest savings account paying 4 percent. It took 5 minutes, and netted me hundreds of dollars in interest. I would have gotten less than 2 dollars in interest if I hadn't moved the money.
All of these take a little bit of time at first. But the 20 to 30 minutes you spend on each task could reap
significant long-term savings.