A Few Simple Budgeting Tips to Save Money

I think that every budget has somewhere that extra money is being spent and could be cut back. So I examined ours and looked for where we could be saving money so we could start doing just that. I found a few things to start cutting back on and this is how we are saving money on a tight budget with a few simple budgeting tips.

1. Go food shopping less.

Going grocery shopping once a week for the majority of the week’s food. We had gotten in a bad habit of not keeping enough food in our house which led to us picking up take out too often. Which was not only bad for our finances but also bad for our health. Going shopping and getting what we need may be expensive that one day but having food at home saves us money in the long run.

This is why meal planning is so important. You can save so much money on your budget by spending less on groceries.

2. Make going out a rarity.

Start making going out to eat, getting an ice cream, Starbucks a special treat and not a regular occurrence. Through looking at where we were spending money I noticed way too much was going to “treats” such as these things and without realizing it they were really adding up. So now we are really making an effort to cut back on going out for food and special drinks. This is also why I put #1 about keeping food at home.

3. Cut Cable.

Everybody seems to be breaking up with cable. If you haven’t done it already, give it a try! That’s a really fantastic way to save a whole lot of money. And, don’t you already spend a lot of money on the internet? Why not just get Hulu and Netflix? If you are like me and shop on Amazon a lot, you can get Amazon Prime for $99 for the whole year and that comes with Amazon Instant Video! 

Not paying for cable may seem like an easy way to save but the best simple budgeting tips are easy because the easier they are the more likely you are to do it.

4. Watch the automatic charges.

I have a lot of stuff I’ve signed up for my blog that pulls out of our account automatically. So I went through our bank statement and looked at all the charges and re-evaluated if I really used everything. Some things I used a lot and really need so I kept those. There were a few things I didn’t use enough to justify the expense so I  canceled them. I ended up canceling almost $40 a month in things. I didn’t even realize that much was being spent on things I didn’t need. I make enough with my blog that I can spend money on it. but I don’t want to be wasting it on things I don’t need.

When you are on a tight budget like we are you have to make sure that every dollar you are spending counts. When it comes to money you have two choices make more or spend less. My husband and I are working on increasing our income but that can be tough. It is working progress though so I’m hopeful. So in the meantime, it’s all about spending less.

So we are trying to spend less and stretch our dollars where we can. We don’t have extra to spend so we need to spend them wisely. These are some of the ways I’ve been doing that. I’m going to keep doing these while at the same time learning more ways to stretch a dollar. I think that saving money is a good habit to learn and even as we up our income I still want to learn what I can about saving money on a tight budget. 

Looking for more simple budgeting tips?

There are quite a few bloggers out there that I have learned a lot about saving money and being on a budget from. These sites are full of the best simple budgeting tips. So make sure that you check them out.

1. Jessie Fearon: You can learn a lot from both her blog and Her course Real Life Money Plan.
2. Rosemarie Groner: Her blog the Busy Budgeter is a lot of help and full of information
3. Caroline Vencil: Her blog has lots of great info on budgeting and saving money.
4. Crystal Paine: She blogs a lot about saving money and great deals.