Does your salary normally disappear before payday? Here's how to make sure it never happens again.
Are the last few days before payday a stressful time for you? Do you find yourself eking out your final few quid until your next pay cheque reaches your account?
If that’s a familiar scenario, take a look at our four-step guide for getting through the month unscathed financially.
1. Get to know your spending habits
You need to keep a close record of what you’re spending.
When you buy something with cash, write it down in a notebook. No purchase is too small. Even a Mars bar.
If you use a piece of plastic, there's no need to get out your notebook. Instead you can use lovemoney.com’s Tracker tool.
With this tool, all your online bank accounts and credit cards are aggregated in one place, so you can see exactly how much money is coming in each day and how much is going out. What’s more, your spending is automatically categorised into different areas such as restaurants or housing costs.
2. Find areas to cut
Once you’ve kept a record for a few weeks, there’s a good chance that you’ll spot some areas where you can cut back on your spending.
Maybe you can go out with friends less frequently and invite them round to your place instead. Or maybe you could cut back on your supermarket spending by only buying items you put on a shopping list before you left home.
3. Draw up a budget
Now you can draw up a budget for the next month. Start by only including the absolute essentials for spending. If all of that works out at less than your monthly salary, you’ve made a good start.
You can then add a few luxuries to your budget spend or decide to put all the surplus aside as savings for your future. Or a bit of both.
Once you’ve drawn up the budget, you can track your success against individual targets using the Tracker tool.
4. Find some more savings
If your budget numbers still aren’t adding up, here are a couple more ideas that might help you:
- Switch your gas and electricity supplier:. Are you paying over the odds for your energy tariff? The chances are if you’ve never really looked at your fuel bills, you’re probably paying more than you should. Switch to a cheaper tariff now before winter really steps in.
- Think about remortgaging: If your introductory deal is about to come to an end or you don’t have a special deal at all, you may be able to make big savings. You could get some free advice from a lovemoney.com mortgage broker if you want to find out more.
Hopefully these tips will make a difference for you. Good luck!
More: Build a new life in four weeks! | Check out Tracker now!