"Oh So Effective"

Budgeting is the best way to make money

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone once said: ‘it’s not how much money we make thats important, but rather how much we can keep’. This is totally true, income is not just the money that we get paid, but also the money we save. Trying to double your salary income is a hard task – however doubling the money you have spare every month is easy – its called budgeting!

By not buying something (a can of coke for 50p perhaps) you then make a profit of 50p. These small amounts of money soon accumulate into bigger amounts over time. Throughout your weekly life there are hundreds of ways to make 50p here and 50p there; before you know it, you have saved a considerable amount of money threw budgeting.

To make cutbacks and budget – assess the following:

- Strip out all of your wants – buying items that are ‘wanted’ rather than ‘needed’ is the quickest way to waste large amounts of money and move into the opposite direction to what you are aiming.

- Downgrade as much as possible -  many savings can be made from purchasing cheaper versions of the things we ‘need’ to buy. From cheaper accommodation to cheaper washing powder.

- Make lifestyle cutbacks – lifestyle cutbacks are another way to save allot of money for some people. Re-thinking expensive nights out, or dinning out is essential to make savings. After all there is no point making allot of small changes if when friday night comes around every week you blow all the progress on un-nessasary social entertainment.

- Don’t buy things that come free or come cheaper – don’t buy something that can be occupied cheaper somewhere else, try ebay and freecycle

- Review your travel – Do you need a car? if not get a bike, or take transport.

- Always review and tighten the budget – Cutbacks are never nice at first, but soon once the extra money starts to stack up saving becomes easier and easier. Monthly review your spending against your budget and see where you can make extra cutbacks, or see where you went wrong and plan accordingly.

This advice may seam too frugal for some people however its just things to consider, as there is also a contradictory opinion that you need to spend and expand your money inorder to bring more money in. However Budgeting is a concept that everyone should understand sand it belongs in chapter 1 of money for dummys!