by Barry Tadmore

Created on: April 19, 2010

When you need to save money or simply avoid using savings to get by every month, it’s important to make a budget.  But making the budget is only half the battle.  Sticking to that budget is the most difficult part of the budgeting process.  But there are a few things you can do to help you stick to your budget.

First of all, try to make all of your bills the same.  Many of your utilities fluctuate every month.  Whether its electricity or gas, most companies offer equal pay.  People use more electricity in the winter, so they end up paying more money during those cold months.  Equal pay allows you to pay the same amount every month.  They look at your annual usage and average it out over 12 months.  You’ll pay the same every month.

Another important thing to remember is to avoid the extra expenses that you don’t need.  If you like text messaging on your cell phone, build that into your plan.  Every cell phone carrier offers unlimited text packages that will allow you to send as many as you want whenever you want.  If you don’t have that package, you could be spending $.20 for every incoming or outgoing text.  It adds up very quickly!

The easiest way to stick to a budget is to use the envelope method for all of your fluctuating expenses.  My wife and I utilized the envelope method after getting married and it made it so much easier to stick to a budget.  For your fluctuating expenses, take the money out of the account at the beginning of the month and put that money into an envelope.  That is the amount of money you can spend every month.

My wife and I had four envelope categories: Groceries, Date Night, Gas, and Spending Money.  The easiest and most fun category was groceries.  One month we took a walk to the grocery store on the last day of the month.  We had about $8 in our grocery envelope and shopped for a few items.  We were $0.08 short of buying one last item we needed and decided that we’d just come back the next day when we replenished our monthly allowance.  On the way out, we passed the bottle return area and found two bottles.  We turned them in for the $0.05 deposit on each, making $0.10.  We were then able to buy that last item we needed.

For date night we changed our strategy every month.  Some months we would do two cheap date nights per week.  Other months we decided to do one or two fancy date nights per month.  Gas for our vehicles was interesting, but when we were running low on gas and running low on cash, we started biking to work.  It was healthy, good for the environment, and it saved us some money! 

The envelope method might not be the most convenient option in the world, but when you budget with envelopes, it’s impossible to overspend.  Continue working hard and your savings account will thank you!

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