I’ve had many failed budgets since paying off $20k in 18 months. My hubby and I aren’t huge shoppers so the top two things that we usually go over budget on are food and car maintenance.

Food

We do not eat out much. We prepare most of our meals at home. However, we do still have a “restaurant budget.” Depending on the outing (e.g. birthday party, hang with friends, anniversary, or just trying a new restaurant, I’m a huge foodie), we try to budget so that we can allow ourselves not to be pinching pennies when we go out, that way we can enjoy ourselves. Sometimes there are last minute outings that come up where we inevitably go over budget. It also doesn’t help that most of our groceries are organic which adds to our sometimes ever expanding food bill. We’ve come up with a few hacks that kinda helps cushion the impact on our budget which I would share in a later post.

Car Maintenance

Having a car can be very expensive.  Paying for insurance, roadside assistance, tires, etc., can all add up quickly. One thing my husband and I do is take our car in for regular maintenance. This includes oil changes, getting brakes checked, etc. When we got our first car we started a car maintenance fund, in the event that we had to do any major repairs.

It’s a good thing we did! After almost a year with our first car we had to get the transmission and radiator changed, which added up to almost $2000. Thankfully we had saved up enough to cover those costs. If we hadn’t put money aside, even when we didn’t need it, we would have had to scramble to find money to pay for the repairs. However, It’s not uncommon to take the car in for scheduled maintenance only to hear back from the service advisor a few hours later about an unplanned repair which usually has a hefty price tag attached to it. This has happened to us quite a few times and has caused us to go over budget because our maintenance fund was not adequate enough. 

Plan for the inevitable

One of the ways I fixed my “broken budget” was by creating a more realistic budget. Your budget should reflect your current spending habits and ones you want to change. There has to be a balance. For example, if you know that at a certain time of the year, you like to eat out, or go out a lot with friends, plan for it. Budget how much you would usually spend, and save a little each month to cover it. That way you have money to use for those instances and you don’t throw off your current budget.

Saving is more than just putting money away for a rainy day. Saving should be as important as paying your rent or mortgage. If your lifestyle doesn’t currently allow you to save, it’s time to make some changes to that “broken budget.”

How to save

1. Pick a reason
2. Choose an amount: it could be an amount you want to save over time, or something more frequent (monthly, biweekly, weekly)
3. Open a High Interest Saving Account: must give you interest over 0.5%
4. Add saving as a primary part of your budget
5. Set-up automatic transactions: this way you don’t have to think about remembering to put the money away
6. Say goodbye to “broken budgets”

Hopefully these tips will help you fix your budget so that you can #levelupyourwealth