8 Tips to Help You Stick to a Budget!

We're getting to the end of my husband's two week pay period. And since we use his paycheque to pay for groceries, things usually start getting pretty skimpy around here towards the end of the two weeks. It's a lot of searching the back of the pantry and the bottom of the freezer to use what we have. I find it kind of an exciting challenge! It's like the Food Network show "Chopped" - where they give the chefs a random basket of weird items like cotton candy, a rabbit's foot, rutabaga and coconut milk and they have to create a gourmet dish based on those ingredients. I tell ya, we've made some pretty interesting meals around here while we've been budgeting! If we needed to, we could take money from another area, but I hate messing up my system!

Here are 8 tips to help you stick to your budget.

1. Write it down

Every dollar should be accounted for and you should have each dollar spent on paper before you spend it for realz. You have a finite amount of money allocated to each area. Each dollar has a name. Each dollar has a purpose.

2. Step away from temptation

Are you a mall-aholic? A Starbucks fanatic? If these places throw you into a spending frenzy, just WALK AWAY. It's time to get serious with your budgeting and spending, so why tempt yourself unnecessarily?

3. Stick to your envelope system

If you want to find out how to use an cash envelope system, you can check out this post. By using cash for all your purchases, you really do have a lot more control over your spending, because if there isn't any money in the envelope for it, you shouldn't be buying it! At the beginning of each month, really think about the expenses you will have that month that may be different from previous months. Things like birthday parties, swimming lessons for the kids, Christmas, hockey equipment, etc. You get the picture. If you know there is an expense coming up in a few months, start budgeting now.

4. Only buy what's on your shopping list

This is not the time to try Kobe beef! Stick to the basics, make as much food from scratch as you can, and learn to shop using sales from flyers and coupons. And remember to take advantage of reward systems like PC Plus Points or Shopper's Drug Mart Optimum Points (in Canada).

5. Exercise at home

I discussed this in a previous post but last time I checked, you didn't need a gym membership to get healthy. Walking works, and you can get lots of FREE workouts on Youtube. Jillian Michael's has a bunch. This is my favourite one! Imagine how hot I'll be after doing this workout for a few years and paying off my debt? Rawr....

6. Visit the library

It's a free place to take your kids for a fun little outing, and you can go home with books, DVDs and audio books. And it doesn't cost anything. Plus reading is really good for your brain. It makes you way smarter than watching TV will. Blogs are great reading too ;)

7. Carpool

Have any people at work you can carpool with? I know sometimes we just want to rock out alone in our car to Iron Maiden but you can save so much money by splitting the cost of gas and parking fees. Just make sure you pick someone you actually like, and who has good hygiene.

8. Create a vision board

Some people think this is a little too much woo-woo for them but in my opinion, a vision board is a road map that everyone in the family can follow, and it helps remind them why they are making big sacrifices. Take a bunch of magazines and start pinning up the fun things you're family will be able to do once you've paid down debt, and have been able to save.


Have any great ideas to help us stick to a budget! Send me a comment. Please, oh please?

How to Create a Cash Envelope System

The idea of having a cash envelope system is that you should only buy things with the cash you have allocated for that area of your life. It's to help give you boundaries to work within so you don't over spend.

1. Create a Budget
This is the fun part! Yeah, not even close. If you have a partner, spouse or roommate, you'll have to sit down together and hash out what money needs to go into what areas. This part can get a little touchy if you're not on the same path. But work it out the best you can. This is where you are going to figure out how many envelopes you need and how much money will be in each envelope. To figure out how to create a zero based budget, you can use this form and watch the video below to help you out.

2. Divide your Hard-Earned Cash into Envelopes
(if you want, you can roll in it before you stash it)
My husband gets paid bi-weekly and I get paid bi-monthly, so we withdraw a certain amount on his paydays and some on my paydays. Also, some of our bills come directly out of our account, so that money just stays in our chequing account. You'll need to update your budget monthly as different things come up that you have to budget for i.e. Christmas. We've been saving in this envelope for a few months! High-five for not having to use any credit this Christmas! Here are the cash envelopes our family has this month:

• groceries
• gasoline
• restaurant
• His spending money
• Her spending money
• Water bill
• Christmas gifts
• Car maintenance
• Home maintenance
• Clothes 
• Pets
• Haircuts
• Swimming lessons

3. Cash is King

Going to get gas? Take it out of your cash envelope. Grocery run? Cash, baby! By the end of the two weeks, the envelopes are pretty skimpy and lonely but there is some satisfaction in knowing that you stuck to the money that was allocated to that specific area. I'm not going to lie, sometimes, at the end of the two weeks when all the grocery money is gone, there is a lot of PB and J and eggs for dinner. That's okay - a few sacrifices never hurt anyone! The key here is to not use your debit card AT ALL. You should have enough cash to cover all your expenditures. And if there is no cash for it, you just don't buy it. Save up for it next month. What? Wait for something. Ouch... I know.

4. Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Just kidding. No need to wash and rinse but you will repeat this process every month: Create your budget and then allocate the money to different areas of your life. The hope is that, by budgeting, you will have extra income at the end of the month to save or pay off debt, depending which baby step you are on if you're following Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness.

Other Helpful Tips:

• You might need to adjust things in the first few months as you try to figure out how much money you really need in each area. That's okay! That's how you figure it out.
• You can buy an envelope folder from Dollarama or any dollar store for cheap. Until then, good ol' fashion envelopes will do, one for each area. I just like having everything in one place.
• If you would rather take out cash for the entire month, you can do that. If a weekly system is better for you, go with that. It doesn't matter how you divide the money, as long as you follow your budget.
• I don't walk around with a huge wad of cash in my pocket. If I know I need groceries or gas that day, I make sure to take it out before I leave home. By the way, don't come looking for my envelope. I have a Belgium Shepherd that will chew your face off. She's sweet... until you mess with her family.

How does your family budget? I'd love to get your feedback!

A new direction for our family - headed toward financial freedom!

A few weeks ago, a friend asked if anyone was interested in joining a financial challenge group on Facebook. We've always been okay with our finances (not great) but I knew we had the opportunity to improve our financial outlook and I thought a challenge group would be a great way to kick start this endeavour.

Our group follows financial expert, Dave Ramsey's book The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness which breaks down the process of getting out of debt into small, easy to achieve baby steps that are meant to help you get momentum quickly to help encourage you to keep moving toward financial, debt-free, freedom

Here are the 7 steps:

Our first step, and maybe the hardest step of all, was analyzing how much money we were earning and how much money we were spending. This can sometimes create a little heat between couples (if you are married or living with another person), so be prepared to hash a few things out. It wasn't too bad for us as a couple because we both had the same vision for our family so we were happy to move forward. Together.

Once you have figured out where your money is going, you are going to implement a cash envelop and zero based budget system. Here is a video I created to help you understand the budgeting. Also this sheet from Dave Ramsey's website will help figure out your cash flow.

We use cash for things like gasoline, Christmas savings, water bill, groceries, etc. All our other bills are automatic so that money stays in our account until that money is taken out by the utility company or bank for our mortgage. I'll talk more about that in an upcoming post.

We have used this method in the past but fell off the wagon for some reason. We seem to have a better plan in place now and are really embracing this cash system. It's so good to feel like you have control over your spending!

We are at baby step 2 now which is very exciting! We've saved our $1,000 emergency fund which will give us a buffer in case we have a financial emergency while we are trying to pay down our debt.

My goal is to have our debt paid off within a year and our house paid off within 6 - 8 years. Without debt, could you imagine ALL the things you could do?

I want to use this blog to keep our family accountable while helping to encourage and create a dialogue for other families to follow in our footsteps. I encourage people to post their questions, tips and secrets, and I'll make sure to share ours too.

Who else wants to join the revolution? Comment and let us know if you want to join us!