7 Budget Hacks You Should Try to Rescue Your Monthly Budget

Oftentimes, people who suffer from budgeting problems are those who don’t have a clear game plan in place. Although they are aware of the importance of following good financial habits, they just don’t know how to put it into practice. The result is a deficient budget, which needs some serious rescue efforts.

That said, here are seven hacks that are worth giving a try, so you don’t go into a budget deficit the next time around:

1. Bring meals to work

You eat anywhere from two to three meals when you go to the office every day unless the company regularly provides free lunch or snacks to employees. Each time you buy food while at work, it costs you more compared with if you have meals prepared at home. If you have dinner leftovers, keep them in tightly sealed containers and bring them to work the next day.

2. Save your change

There are plenty of uses for all your spare change, whether it’s to buy small items from the convenience store or to purchase a single ride ticket for the subway. There are even apps that let you use your dollars or coins in investments. Once your account reaches a certain amount, the app will automatically invest it on your behalf. And of course, your good old piggy bank could use those loose cents from out of your pocket.

3. Give every dollar an assignment

In case you haven’t heard of this hack, this simply means creating a budget and allocating a certain amount for each expense or saving category on a budgeting spreadsheet. When you do this, you’ll be very conscious of how much money you’re only supposed to spend and for what you’re spending it for. Any unnecessary expense will have to go.

4. List grocery items to shop

If you have a compulsive buying condition, you’re more likely to buy more than you had planned if you do the groceries without a shopping list. This happens because you tend to justify that even though there’s no urgent need for buying something unplanned, it’s still possible that you’ll need it in the near future. Needless to say, this results in your grocery bill ballooning at the end of your shopping spree.

However, when you make a note of what things to buy, all you need to do is go to the aisle where the items are located and then move on to the aisle for the next item in your list.

5. Don’t go shopping hungry

Lines at the mall can get pretty long, making you feel exhausted and hungry as if you’ve done a major physical activity. At this point, you might feel the strong urge to find a café or restaurant to rest for a while, and grab a bite, as well. That’s another expense for you in just a few hours’ interval! Either you eat before going to the mall or wait until you get home to fix yourself something to eat.

6. Save up with a buddy

If you’re having a hard time sticking to a financial plan on your own, you might need to ask for help from someone in your family, office, or circle of friends to be your saving buddy. This person may or may not have financial issues as you do—the important thing is to have someone else motivate or guide you into achieving financial stability.

Talk to your buddy about your goals and challenges, and the two of you could start a friendly savings game. The first one to put up a savings or emergency fund with the agreed amount wins the game. You may also set a rule about the winner getting a reward as long as it doesn’t require spending the money saved!

7. Try a day or a week with no spending

This is both a hack and a challenge, wherein the goal is to have zero spending. This may sound impossible since there are expenses that you can’t avoid altogether.

What you can do is to pick which of your expenses to put on hold for one whole day or even one whole week if you have the willpower to do it. You may choose to cut on your favorite cup of joe or glass of bubble tea, smoking habit, online shopping, or any other expense that’s not really a necessity.

Once you get the hang of it, you can increase your no-spending days into weeks or months. Imagine how much you’ll have saved by then!

You Can Hack Budget Problems

Avoiding budget problems is possible. To make your monthly budget work for you, you need to build a set of financial habits, and use other budgeting ideas and hacks recommended by experts in financial management. Of course, a firm resolve to stick to your budget goes a long way, too.