You Will Probably Keep Losing Money
If you don’t set up a budget for yourself, you will probably keep losing money.
Let’s just face reality. Most of you will never put together a budget. You might say, oh, that’s a great idea! I’m going to do this right away! But, you never will. You’ve been given the same advice before. You’ve read it in books. You’ve read it in blogs. You’ve seen it on TV. You may have even learned it in school.
Maybe you put a half-hearted effort into making one. Maybe you even tried to follow it for a month, or a week, or maybe you just pitched the thing after a couple days, when your longing for a latte overtook your desire to save money.
Anyway, you never got serious about it, and you didn’t do it.
And, you’re not going to do it either, are you? Sure, you’ll read the post, think it’s a great idea, maybe even leave a comment saying you’ll get right on it, but then you’ll go watch TV, fall asleep and forget about it.
So, let’s find a way to save you money without having a budget. You should still have a budget, but we both know you’re not going to do one, so let’s just talk about another money saving idea.
This one’s fairly easy. All you have to do is set aside money each time you don’t buy something.
Say, for example, you go to a fast food place for lunch. “You want fries with that?” Say no, and set aside the 99 cents you would have spent on fries. Hitting the snack box at work? Skip it and stick the 75 cents you saved aside. You can put the change in your other pocket or carry an extra change purse or coin holder with you. Skip your morning latte, and put that $4.75 aside. See something neat at the store you want to buy? Don’t. Set that money aside instead.
It’s a little bit harder if you pay for everything with a credit card. In that case, you’ll need to write down what you didn’t spend and write yourself a check for that amount at the end of the week or month. Oh, wait, if you didn’t mind writing stuff down, you would have done a budget. But, you didn’t do that, so you’re probably not going to do this either. Okay. Never mind.
Then, for those of you not using credit cards, at the end of the day, put all that loose change and any paper money and stick it in a jar, or a piggy bank, or whatever. And, if you’re writing checks for everything, well just write yourself a check and stick it in the jar. Or, don’t even write the check (to save money there, because you probably pay for your checks) and just deduct the amount from your checking account. At the end of the month, you can withdraw that money from your checking account and put it in your jar. Or your savings account.
Anyway, just by not buying things and setting aside the money you didn’t spend, you can see how much the money adds up. It also gives good visual evidence of how much money you’ve been letting go without even realizing it.
And, it works even without a budget, though you should still try to do a budget.
Hey Dan, will you roll up a giant bucket full of sticky pennies for me so I can cash them in? I’d like to splurge and eat at McDonalds (I hear rich people eat there)!
Send me your pennies. I’ll put them in rolls for you and send them back, minus a sorting fee, postage and a processing fee. If your pennies don’t cover the fees, I won’t send them back, thus saving you on postage. In such a case, I’ll just send you a bill and you can pay by PayPal or money order. Or, just send the pennies already rolled and we’ll just call it even. Thanks for your business!
I just heard that four more penny designs were being minted. I thought it cost more to make a penny than it was worth. Why oh why would our government want to put MORE of those into circulation when we should be getting rid of them?
Get rid of them? Then we’ll be rounding everything up to the nearest nickel. Who do you think is going to profit from that? Hint: Not us!
Anyway, here are the new designs.
An old tip that I remember was to look at an impulse item that you’re thinking of buying and imagining it in a junk pile somewhere- basically, you’re reminding yourself that whatever you buy you’ll forget about and it will attach itself to your clutter. The less junk you buy, the more money you save in the long run- you won’t have to pay for storage, and won’t need as much living space, thus, saving more money on rent or a mortgage…
Ah yes the infamous budget, I have a hard copy one, I have and Excel one, I have a scratch paper one. I have one for the short term, the long term and the even longer term. I have one for specific goals, one for shopping, one for ……well you get the picture.
The problem is I make the budget and something will come up to through it off kilter and I never go back to make the adjustments and I end up calculating things in my head and using a calendar to figure out what needs what when. That’s the way it is living from paycheck to paycheck.
Great idea though, I’ll get right on it….now where is that darn remote….oops nap time;)
Yep, that’s what happens to many people who do try to keep a budget: the first money emergency that comes along gets them to forget all about the budget!
Nice advice Dan.
It’s pretty practical and definitely adds up.
Another thing would be to stop ordering appetizers all together and order water instead of the $2 coke or iced tea.
Have a great Wednesday!
Forest
Good tip!
Thanks for stopping by!
Great idea, Dan! If more of us did this, we’d be much better off! Thanks for sharing this simple technique for saving money!
Just trying to help you buy a bigger house, you know, so you can save your books.
Thanks, Dan! I’d love that!