Budgeting Mistakes That Everyone Makes

We’ve all been there, the months leading up to Christmas when we have to start budgeting a lot more to afford nice presents and gifts for our loved ones. It’s a struggle we all go through, whether you’re a constant, all-year saver or you’re a last-minute impulse buyer – there won’t have been a time you haven’t had to budget. September is the month I normally start saving for Christmas as I like to buy my presents very last minute (it gives a lot of people anxiety, I know!) For me it’s always been hard to save money as I’m not amazing at budgeting, some weeks I’ll budget to spend £100 on shopping and then when my Asda trip comes I end up spending nearly £250. Then there are other times when I hardly spend anything and I’m left wondering how it all makes sense, the truth is – it doesn’t. However, over the last few years, I’ve become a lot better with budgeting and that’s because I realised the mistakes I’ve been making. After countless conversations with my friends, I found that it’s common to be doing these mistakes and not even realising. This is what has made me compile a little list of mistakes that you’re definitely making but not realising. Hopefully, it makes budgeting these next few months easier.

A habit that none of us is proud of but all of us do is impulse buying. When you’re in the middle of a shop and you see something you love, sometimes it’s hard to put it down, well, think about budgeting it into your weekly budget for next week! Instead of buying it there and then, write it down somewhere and budget it for the week after – it might be on sale and it might be sparkly but your bank account will thank you for not buying it on impulse, trust me.

There will always be little things you need to buy in the back of your mind, most of the time you’ll probably not write it down but then buy it when you’re out, it’s not like impulse buying (because you don’t feel the guilt) but it does eat into your budget for the week. When you’re writing your list for the month or week, try to add the little bits that you might not always think about adding.

You can’t live too frugal though, sometimes it’s mentally draining to be frugal with everything. If you’d rather have branded ketchup then that’s fine, spend the extra money and get it – no one is saying you’ve got to budget for the things you like. You’ve just got to work your budget around your life, not your life around your budget. It doesn’t matter if one week you can only save £100 and the next you can save £300, every little penny counts, but you’ve still got to live so definitely give yourself a break sometimes!

It’s always nice to treat yourself and going too long without a treat or two can be draining, my advice is to just put it in your budget for that week or month!

Do you have any tips and tricks for budgeting? Share them in the comments with us!