{"id":377,"date":"2018-07-28T23:46:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-28T13:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celinelowe.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2018-07-29T16:40:30","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T06:40:30","slug":"august-budget-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celinelowe.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/28\/august-budget-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"August Budget Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of you who know me well, you know that every Tuesday fortnight is budget night. I’ve been budgeting my money since I turned 25 and I love budgeting. It is one of the most empowering habits I have and it is a skill that serves me well as a small business owner.<\/p>\n

I haven’t always been a successful budgeter and even now, I still go over budget once in a while (I do have a safety net though – but I don’t like to use it often.) Usually, I spend 80% of my pay packet on living expenses with the other 20% going straight into savings – Mostly, I am successful and don’t spend the money I have earmarked as savings. This month I’ve decided to challenge myself even more and only spend 50% of my usual pay packet. I’m actually quite nervous about this, but I’m excited because I think there will be lots to learn.<\/p>\n

That being said years of budgeting have taught me many valuable lessons that I think will help me out in this challenge.<\/p>\n

Lesson 1: Know my day to day living expenses<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Budgeting became a lot easier after I learned to log and track my expenses. I use the app “TrackMYSpend” which is an app developed by the Australian Government – so it’s a little buggy – but I love it. It allows me to see where I spend my money the most.<\/p>\n

This simple task is a lot harder to complete than you think, not because you need to remember to “write down” what you spend – you can fix that by keeping receipts on everything you spend and logging it later – but because of the emotions that come with keeping track of your money. It was hard at first because I couldn’t help but judge myself as I put what I’ve spent into the app – especially when I ended up going over budget, which was often.<\/p>\n

That being said, even though this is a hard thing to do there are so many benefits – but that’s a blog for another day<\/p>\n

Lesson 2: Make sure I don’t feel deprived.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Usually, the word “budget” is associated with self deprivation. For me, budgeting means making better choices about how and where I spend my money.<\/p>\n

For my challenge to be successful; I know I can’t cut out some of the things I love doing and having – like having a meal out with friends. I have to make sure that I account for social occasions too such as birthdays. This is where Lesson 1 comes in handy. Knowing how and why I spend my money means that I can identify areas in my spending that can be cut. This means becoming more creative with how I spend my money. Here are some of my bigger categories of expenses that I’ve noticed over the last few pay cycles ands some of my ideas to reduce my spending:<\/p>\n