Don’t even try to get by without a budget as you will be setting yourself up for failure. It’s as simple as that.
Without a budget you can’t hope to have control over your finances as most people will find that once they start doing a budget they realize all the additional expenditure they have in their life that they hadn’t noticed in the past.
It is the little bits and pieces of expenditure that accumulate into a bigger debt problem.
Creating a budget is one of the first things that you should do and using that budget daily will keep you on track to getting out of debt.
If someone were to ask you right now to write down exactly how much it costs you to live day to day, week to week, and month to month — could you do it?
If you are honest you would probably have to admit that it would take quite some time as you would have to look through your card statements, monthly bills, shopping lists and more to get a clear picture of what money you are spending.
In addition to that you would need to look at any expenses that occur at irregular intervals either quarterly or once yearly.
You would also need to make allowances for additional spending during the festive season and the extra interest you would need to pay on the credit card debt that you would drum up over that period.
On top of that you would need to make allowances for maintenance on your vehicles and household maintenance.
The more you look into the expenditure the more that will be revealed and that is why a budget is so important. Most people get a big shock when they prepare a budget for the first time as they never realize how much money they spend on things that they don’t think about.
And that is why you must have a budget. There is no suitable alternative. You can’t run a business at its best without a budget and you can’t run a household without one either.