If your expenses are greater than your income then you have to contend with a budget deficit and there are only two ways you can deal with this. You can earn more money or you can spend less – it is as simple as that. Unfortunately it is easier said than done some of the time and that’s why many people get into debt in the first place by topping up the deficit with money from credit cards and other high interest loans.
Your budget will help you to focus on areas where you can cut your spending. Obviously you will be looking at luxury items first and those non-essential items that will be easy to eliminate. If you can eliminate your budget deficit by getting rid of these non-essential items then you are in luck however it might not be quite that easy for you to reduce your spending enough to make up the deficit.
If that is the case then you will have to go back over your budget again and see the areas where you can cut your spending to try to close the gap between income and expenditure.
If you are putting a percentage of your income aside a regular basis for some type of saving scheme then you might need to consider canceling that saving until you have managed to reduce your debt to such an extent that you are able to cover your costs with your income.
Once all areas of cost-cutting have been exhausted you are left with the only other alternative of increasing your income and you will need to look at whether you’re able to increase your hours of work or possibly even get a second job to bring in enough additional income to cover your expenses.
One way or another unless this budget deficit is eliminated you will be destined to continue accumulating debt and the more you do that the more difficult it will be to bridge the gap.