Sometimes I feel like I’m useless with money, I can be as thrifty as possible and I still have NO idea where it all goes. Sometimes I’m convinced someone’s cloned my card, until I check and realise that oops I probably shouldn’t have bought that £15 brow powder. My eyebrows look great but my bank statement does not. As career girls we need to get a good grip on our finances and be good at managing money, but it can be hard as a young woman to actually want to do that! Money planning doesn’t have to be boring, and you can always treat yourself for being so good with your spendings that it almost makes keeping an eye on your cash worthwhile! Here’s our guide on how to plan, budget and save so you can be better with money!
#1 Set up a budget
A budget will keep track of your incomings and outgoings, and it’s a good way to see how much money you have after bills, tv licensing, council tax, car insurance and all the things that add up. The Money Advice Service has a good online budget planner, where you can do a quick breakdown of your income and the excess that you spend it on, or a more detailed plan of what goes in and comes out.
Image from The College Prepster
#2 Stop the unnecessary spending!
A good way to stop making unnecessary purchases would be to firstly go through your card statement and identify what you’ve bought in the past month that you didn’t really need. It’s good to include some ‘treat’ spending money in your budget, but if you’re like me you’re probably buying things you really can live without. If you see something you really want, wait two weeks and see if you still want it as much, if so – go ahead and buy it, but if not you’ve identified an unnecessary purchase! Go you!
#3 Set a goal!
A lot of us have debts (student loan anyone?) but there’s no need to worry about them too much when they can be paid off in small amounts, the best way to pay off your loans or have enough money for something you really want to do (like go travelling, buy a car etc) is to save, save, save! Set up one goal. Something that you absolutely want to save for, and set aside a bit of money each month. Some people collect loose change in a jar, and honestly it does all add up! Again, the Money Advice Service has an excellent savings tool where you can input the amount you want to save and it’ll calculate how much you need to put aside each month! All the hard work is essentially done for us!
Photo from We Heart It
#4 Free stuff!
Keep your eyes out for offers, bargains and free stuff. ‘10 ways to have more money as a student without working‘ is a Facebook page that was set up mostly for students but is now used by hundreds of people, real supermarket employees anonymously share when their systems are processing things for a cheaper price, and they post offers on good quality products rather than cheap and nasty stuff. Sites like Groupon, Wowcher and Voucher Cloud are great for getting price reductions, as is Amazon Local, so do check those out to see if there’s any savings that get you excited! Afterall career girls don’t want to be cheap but we do want to be thrifty!
Oh dear, story of my life! Thanks for the tips! Let’s see if it works for me
x
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nice tips!! I really need to start being better with my money…I’m such a spender :S
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Thank you so much for the amazing tips!
Great post!
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I think saving a little each month has helped me.
Lizzie Dripping
I think being thrifty is just being smart. Why pay more when you can pay less for the same item? And YES on the budget. Everyone needs a budget, and to keep track of every penny spent. I suggest people use an online program like Quicken and enter all their receipts. Once you get in the habit, it doesn’t take long, and it is such an easy to use, terrific record.
Saving money needs to be learnt by every girl in this world I think. I just don’t understand how my mom does that so well. I am always out of money. I even tried saving in a jar but I just spend it before even buying the thing I was saving it for.
I think I need some serious help. hhahah!
Well, I loved your idea about free stuff. That does save money. Thanks
Great tips!
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Thnx so much for the post! I have found using savings accnts like ING (now Capital One) helps so much BC I can have separate accts for everything: travel, savings, house stuff…that way I know what I have allocated for each of those things
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