7 Easy Ways To Stick To Your Budget | Willow Beans (2024)

If you haven’t got a budget planned out yet, check out my budgeting tool to get you started.

Make Sure Your Budget Covers EVERYTHING

One typical error made in peoples budgets is missing out the annual items. When planning your budget look at at least 12 months of spending and bills to ensure you don’t forget the annual items that only come around once a year.

When paying your council tax, car insurance or other bills annually allocate 1/12th of these bills to be put away each month, so when it’s due the money is all ready, waiting to be paid.

Check Your Day-to-Day Spending

Ever look at your bank balance and wonder where that extra £20 went? Paying for items on your debit card often means you forget that you spent it. You’ll be surprised how much of your spending goes ‘under-the-radar’. To ensure you’re budgeting correctly for all the little things you buy here and there try tracking your spending for two weeks.

Recordeverythingyou buy/spend across a typical two week period and check that this spending lines up with what’s available in your budget. This process will also help you see where you could make savings. Do this on paper, or with an app such asMoney Dashboard.

Use Multiple Accounts to Organise Your Money

No one wants to be pulling a paper budget out of their pocket every time they reach the checkout. Separating money by accounts was, for me, the key to getting my spending under control.

Quite simply all your bills come from one account, and your remaining spending money comes from another, this way you can’t overspend and dip into your bill funds. You can take it a step further by putting your groceries fund in a third account and only using that for your weekly grocery shopping.

Alternatively, if cash works for you try using Cash Envelopes to budget for groceries!

Give Yourself an Allowance

It may sound like something you would do with a teenager, but giving yourself a monthly or weekly allowance for your everyday purchases will help you be more sensible about your spending.

Decide how much you are limiting yourself to each week. Either take this out in cash and leave your debit card at home or put this into a separate account that you can spend from directly. When the money’s gone, the spending stops (until next week!)

Plan Your Meals

Yes, this can be a tiresome and tedious process, but it pays off in the long term. Plan out your meals before you go to do your weekly grocery shopping. Once you’ve planned out your meals, check your kitchen for the ingredients you already have and create a shopping list of everything you need.

Now the essential part:Always stick to the list!

Don’t be tempted to throw extras in the trolley as you shop, if they’re not on the list, you don’t need them.

HANDY TIP: Eat before you shop so you’re not shopping on an empty stomach, this will help with sticking to the list!

Make Takeaways a ‘Treat’

I’m ashamed to admit that takeaways used to happen far too often in our house. Since we started meal planning our wallets have been so much happier and takeaways have become a real treat for us all. And, yes, we schedule them in our meal planner.

Only plan takeaways once in a blue moon, when you know you can comfortably afford to splash out on one, getting all the trimmings. This approach will turn takeaway night into a special treat for you.

Why not make it a whole evening of family fun, with a takeaway, a movie, sweet treats and popcorn?
(If you order your takeaway online using services like GrubHub, Deliveroo or Just Eat, try going via Quidco or Rakuten to earn some cashback on your takeaway treat!)

Reduce Your Waste

How often do you make too much? Are you often left with food in the pan? You don’t need to change the way you cook. Just factor these leftovers into your meal plan. We freeze our cooked leftovers and often plan a ‘Freezer Surprise’ evening to make space in the freezer and reduce our food waste.

Reduce waste outside of the kitchen also, check you’re not leaving your lights on, taps dripping, get every last drop out of the shampoo bottle or the toothpaste tube. Reuse or repurpose old items of clothing; old t-shirts make great rags for dusting, DIY projects & more. Just pop your ideas into Google or Pinterest and see how others are repurposing and recycling items at home.

Other Money Saving Ideas

• Become an At-Home Barista. Learn how to make your favourite coffee at home to save a few £’s on that daily stop at the coffee shop.
  We asked Santa for a coffee maker a couple of years ago and this little machine has saved us a fortune in the long term.
• Use an envelope budgeting system, as mentioned in my post on sinking funds.
• Take the credit card out of your wallet. Lock it away at home, for emergencies only. This approach will reduce impulse purchases that don’t fit your budget.
• ALWAYS shop around if you can, particularly for any large purchase, insurance or financial product. Ensure you’re getting the best value possible.
• If you’re in the UK or the USA, I highly recommend Monzo Bank. Their accounts allow you to set up ‘Pots’ which act like separate accounts and you can even have direct debits paid directly out of your pots.
• Use a cashback site such as Quidco(UK) or Rakuten(US) to get money back on your everyday purchase, you’ll be surprised how many everyday brands are available on these sites. I’ve earned over £200 cashback on Quidco since I started using it:

None of the methods listed here is exhaustive or requires any significant lifestyle changes; they are all easily achievable and will pay dividends in the long-term if you stick with them.

For more details on the resources mentioned in this post and more of my recommendations, visit my resource library.

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