Money struggles

[staceylouise91]

I’m struggling massively with money until payday which is at the end of the month. I try to save but I’m awful at it. I also try to budget but sometimes things don’t go to plan. Any advice please 🙏🏽 x

Do you know where the money is actually going?

What money do you have left OP & what do you have left to pay for?

People may be able to help you with budgetting tips.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/
Use the budget planner on this link to work out your finances. Be honest!

Can you list your income and outgoings?

A lot depends on whether you simply don’t have enough money for your outgoings - sadly becoming more common with cost of living rises - or whether you are frittering money away on non-essentials. You can’t save if you need every penny to live on.

A good start is to spend a month writing down everything you spend money on down to the last 10p. Sometimes it can be eye opening.

Once you know where the money is going, you can work out where to cut down.

You need to work out where your money is going before you can devise strategies to stop it going!

However, one thing that has worked well for many clients of mine is to have a second bank account for everyday spending. Once you've worked out how much you need for all your regular outgoings (rent, bills, subscriptions, loan/CC repayments, car expenses, and don't forget annual things like insurance etc), you'll be able to see how much you have left for day to day spends. You can then transfer the equivalent weekly amount to your "day to day" account every week, and use that money for all your shopping and incidental spending.

If you have a card for your "bills" account, leave it at home, so you don't get tempted to use it on non-essentials.

If it's the case that you should have enough left at the end of the month to save, but you fritter it away before then, once useful approach is to 'pay yourself first'. So, if you know that you can put away £100 a month, set up a standing order to transfer £100 to your savings account the day after pay day. Then it's just not in your current account to blow on coffees, takeaways etc.

I get how tough it is when you’re struggling to make it to payday, budgeting and saving sound easy on paper, but life doesn’t always go to plan. One thing that might help is using discount and cashback sites to save on things you already need to buy. Try tracking your spending for a week or two just to see where it’s all going. Here’s a site that might be useful: https://savingsays.com