Hope for your financial life and beyond

The Best Option for the Extra Budget Money at the End of the Month

Perhaps you’ve had this experience with your monthly budget money: budget money

At the beginning of the month you allocated “X” amount for a particular budget category. Due to clipping coupons, noticing that sale item or exercising some intense discipline, you didn’t end up spending as much for that category as you had planned. You had extra money for that budget category that went unspent for the month.

Putting it into an example – you budgeted $600 for groceries but only spent $525. You thought that dress would be $100 but you lucked into a half-off sale. There was no car maintenance for the month and the $75 you earmarked for the car maintenance budget wasn’t used.

So there is extra money available to be used in that expense category. What do you do with the extra money? Where does it (or should it) go or should you spend it at all?

You may have never thought to ask those questions, but there are actually some issues here that need to be addressed. I can think of three different options for your extra budget money at the end of the month, with one of them being the clear cut winner in my book.

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How to Make Saving and Budgeting Easier

Many things can impact your financial world. But mostly it’s you. Winning with your money is only about 20 percent knowledge. 80 percent of your success will come from your behavior with money.

Your financial wellbeing is directly affected by how well you are able to manage your money and plan for the future. Each activity and decision can affect your future.

With that in mind, there are several ways to make the most of the income you do have. 

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March Madness: Avoiding the Budget Busters

2014-ncaa-tournament-bracketOur oldest daughter was born during the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament. At the hospital, my wife groaned through labor pains as the midwife who assisted in the delivery was tracking a Notre Dame game on the TV in the room. I’m not sure the midwife appreciated Mrs. Luke1428 telling her to turn off her beloved Fighting Irish when there was under four minutes to go in the game. But birth was only about 15 minutes away so I guess that took precedence.

Needless to say, my wife has despised March Madness ever since.

Basketball junkies like myself however, love everything about it. The drama…the intensity…the finality of it…and the upsets that bust up the tournament. Mostly though, this time of year means one thing – the tournament bracket. There’s nothing like putting a plan together and testing your knowledge of the teams in an attempt to pick a winner. If only I had a time-traveling DeLorean to find me a Grays Sports Almanac.

No matter how we think the tournament will progress, there are always upsets and surprises that bust our brackets. These usually come from the underdogs, the little schools that we are not really paying attention to.

Over the years, the same type of thing has happened with our budget. Small things we didn’t anticipate, ignored or simply loved doing would bust our monthly plan. After experiencing the financial drain of these on multiple occasions, we had to make some decisions so they wouldn’t disrupt our life any longer.

The following is a list of five things that used to bust our budget, along with the path we now take to avoid it from happening any longer.

Movies/Entertainment

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