Too Much Month At The End Of My Money

It happens to all of us. We get our paycheck, we do our grocery shopping, pay our bills, then look at our bank balance and say, "Oops, how did that happen?!"

If you don't pay attention, more often than not - you will overspend. You need to know how much you make, and how much you have to pay in expenses in order to keep yourself from living paycheck to paycheck.

So this means, you need to budget. It's really not that hard, and I can almost guarantee that if you stick to it you will most likely have some money leftover at the end of the month.

This is what you need:
A pen
A piece of paper
A calculator
A calender
Your current bank balance

Or, if you have habits (like I do) of losing loose pieces of paper, you probably have a "Notes" App on your smartphone that will also do the trick.

I usually do this at the beginning of the month to make my life easier, but you can also start from today's date and apply it to what's leftover of the month.

You will need to look at the calender, and go through week by week writing down what money is coming in that week, and what money will be going out. For instance: Let's say that this week you will be going grocery shopping, have to fill up the car with gas, pay your cell phone bill and that you get paid on the Friday. You would write down that on Sunday when you go grocery shopping you will spend $150, on Tuesday you fill up the car for $30, Wednesday you pay your phone bill of $100, and on Friday you get paid $1200. Continue to do this for the whole month, and try to make sure you don't forget any payments that you typically make. Use a (-) symbol to show amounts going out, and a (+) symbol to show amounts coming in. This will help when it's time to pull out the calculator and add everything up.

For an example, we will pretend that at your current job you get paid on the 1st & the 15th, that you have rent, a cell phone bill, a cable bill, a heat/electric bill, a credit card bill, buy groceries, a car payment, have car insurance, and buy gas for your car. You will of course have to customize your own list, but this will give you a general idea. We will use April 2016 for the month that we are trying to budget for, and we will say that your rent for April had already been paid and you started with your bank account at $0 (so you can see, that even when you start from nothing, you will still have a balance at the end)

April 2016
1- pay +1300
3- groceries -150
  -gas for car -25
7- cell phone -100
10- groceries -150
    -gas for car -30
14- cable - 120
15- pay +1300
17- groceries -150
    -gas for car -30
18 - car payment -200
     -insurance -120
20- credit card -100
24- groceries -150
    -gas for car -30
27 - heat/electric -150
______________________
total: +1095

may 1 - rent- 1000
           - pay +1300
_____________________
total: +1395  
         This is what you would start with in your bank account at the beginning of the next month!!

The most important part, once you figure out the end total for the month, is to remember that this is what you will have at the END of the month. If you want to know how much money you will have on the 16th because you want to go out for dinner and a movie, then you need to calculate only up to that point. Otherwise you may end up right back where you started from.

I hope that this is helpful for you. Doing this over the past year has saved me a lot of aggravation, and I also haven't had to rely on my overdraft to get through the month anymore, where I use to spend every cent of it.

Good luck!

You don't have to break the bank

I don't know about you, but going grocery shopping in my house is a process.

See that picture? No one in the grocery store is that happy. No one. Because they are dreading the total at the end of the trip.

With a family of four and a limited income I had to come up with a way to feed everyone and stay on budget. When I tell people that I can buy all of our weekly groceries -including kids' school lunches- for under $150 (and usually under $120) they have a hard time believing me. 

Want to know the secret?

Of course you do!

You think I'm going to tell you it's couponing. No. I live in Canada and we can't go coupon crazy like they do in the States. Besides, who needs 200 tubes of toothpaste and 57 bottles of mustard anyways? Seems like a waste of time, and a lot of those couponing people actually SPEND quite a bit of money to get all those inserts. Feels a little bit counter productive to me. All the power to you if you have figured out the trick to coupon and it works for you- but I have a full time job, two kids, and I can't commit the time to that.

It's prepping. That's the key. Simple right? I know. Sometimes it's a hassle. Who has the time to look through the cupboards, look through all the flyers, etc, etc.? I get it. Trust me. But look, we both know that when you get bored chances are you pick up your phone and start going through all of your apps trying to keep yourself occupied (at least that's what I do). So here are two apps that you can use when you're "bored" to help you with your prepping process: Pinterest and Flipp

If you don't have a cell phone (what?!) these are also easily found on the interweb here: Pinterest 

and here: Flipp

Before you can make your grocery list, you need to know what you actually need to buy. 

First, go through your cupboards and fridge and jot down any staple items you may be out of: milk, bread, eggs, etc. Don't forget to check the bathroom for any toiletries you may need too.

Secondly, you NEED to meal prep. This is one of the most important parts in staying on (or under) your budget. And this is where Pinterest comes in handy. If you don't already have a Pinterest account it only takes a few minutes to sign up and it is 100% free. Trust me, you'll thank me later. Pinterest is good for much more than just meal prepping. Go through the "Food and Drink" section and see what catches your eye. "Pin" the recipes and pull them up later when you are ready to cook. Easy peasy.

Lastly, go to Flipp and start looking through the flyers from the stores that sell groceries. If you are using the mobile app there is a "clippings" feature which allows you to circle items that are on sale and will save them for you. You can also search for specific items if you don't want to go through everything, or just have to make a quick run to the store for a few items.

Most grocery stores will price match, and if you "clip" everything in Flipp, you can just show the cashier your phone at the register and they will adjust all the prices. This week I saved over $20 just by price matching alone. Obviously this varies from week to week, but that money eventually adds up.

And who doesn't like saving money?? I know I do. Hopefully this will help you save money like it has for me.