This One Thing Can Ruin Your Budget!

I get it, budgeting is not exciting. Keeping on track day in day out, is hard work at times. I have a spreadsheet that I’m supposed to enter our spends in each day to keep on track, but I keep forgetting lately. By the time we’ve got the boys in bed and then the house sorted for the next day, I just want to go to bed.

 

But, budgeting is important. Having a budget is so important to better finances. A budget is where you plan where your money goes. It’s so you know that you have enough to cover the bills and to allocate various other amounts to different things.

 

But, it’s not that exciting.

 

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I’m finding lately that our budget seems to be getting tighter and tighter. I know that being on maternity leave and reduced income is not helping that much. But spends keep creeping up, for no apparent reason. We normally have a healthy buffer in our current account, in case of an emergency (which is not the same as our emergency fund) but this seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

 

I then realised what it was.

 

The danger point for ruining my budget.

 

Impulse spends. 

 

They get us all! I’ll be the first to admit that I do make impulse purchases, more often lately than before. I wonder if I can blame sleep deprivation for that? And these impulse purchases soon add it.

 

One of my areas of weakness when it comes to spending is children’s clothes. I cannot resist them sometimes; the boys look so much better in clothes than I ever will. Plus, sometimes they’re just too cute! I bought a t-shirt for Frugal Baby from Morrisons the last time I was in – £4. Did he need it? Probably not. Will he look really cute in it? Absolutely! Will it break our budget? Not that one thing.

 

But, add up multiple £4 and we’re looking at a different matter. I’ve previously written about how you shouldn’t worry about the latte factor, that little treats now and again are necessary for actually sticking to a budget. However, if you suddenly find yourself having a lot of these little spends, then that’s a problem.

 

That impulse purchase? It’ll ruin your budget.

 

Now, a piece of clothing for my baby might not be the best example to use here. After all, he does need clothes (and has plenty of them!) but even so. If we changed that to clothes for myself, then it would be different. I do not need any new clothes.

 

But, it happened to me recently too. I never buy myself clothes; I hate going clothes shopping. But, I mentioned it in another post, that I popped to Marks and Spencer for something and ended up buying myself a pineapple t-shirt. Totally not needed, definitely an impulse purchase. I have worn this a lot since buying it, but my wardrobe would have just been fine without it.

 

See why my spends keep creeping up? I can! I need to get better at resisting impulse buys; I never used to have a problem with this but now I do. It’s not great. Plus, if we want to retire early, I need to be making savings wherever I can. I don’t want impulse buying to ruin our budget.

 

What about you? Any tips for avoiding impulse purchases?

 

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