There were times I never took the act of budgeting seriously and those times I felt nothing but regrets. Whenever I check my account balance and in turn cannot explain how I arrived at such low figure as the money left in my account, I feel so sad and irresponsible馃槓
I was totally involved in the cashless payment system thingg where I do not have to touch cash to make my purchases but through online transactions.. I could buy anything I want or need by making transfers to the person selling to me and these made me loose count on how much I spend in a day or even a week. Also, these habit of mine have made me buy things that might not be necessary for me at that moment.I see it as careless spending now.
As I realized that this was doing no good for me and also for the fact that anything I make a habit now as a single lady would definitely continue when I become a family woman, I started taking the act of budgeting seriously and this is how I do it!
Firstly, before I buy anything I make a list of the things that I need by arranging them according to my most pressing needs and down to my less pressing needs.. This is what we call "scale of preference" in economics. While doing this, questions like.. What importance would this be for me? or can I do without these things? usually come to mind. The answers to these questions would now determine how the items on my list would be prioritized.
Secondly, I add price tags to the items on my list so I would know if I can afford what is on my list.. You'll agree with me that the price of items keeps skyrocketing everyday in the market.. What I got in the market today for 200naira might become 250naira the next day and so forth So to help me save up for a long time before I can get more, I buy in bulk too. These has saved me a lot of daily expenses.
Let's take for instance, I love taking maltina to chill off each time I come home from work and I buy the malt on a daily basis for one 250naira. If I keep doing this everyday for a whole month, I would be on expenses on a daily basis but if I gather the money and use it to buy a dozen of the maltina which is sold for around 2200naira I would be saving more rather than buying on a daily basis and this would also help me to save up before I can get another dozen
So this has helped me to take advantage of discount on items that I need many times.
Indeed! wisdom is required while making budgets
- Thirdly, I make a cash withdrawal.
If I withdraw money for a purpose, it helps me stick to the purpose to which that money was withdrawn.
I rarely do online transactions while making my purchases these days because I discovered it made me spend out of budget. These has helped me a lot to curtail careless spending.
These are the ways I make my budgets and this has helped a lot to avoid spending unnecessarily!
This is my entry to the week28edition01 of the hivelearners contest titled
Feel free to participate.