Obstacles may arrive at any point of time. How relaxed or stressed you are day by day depends if you are in debt or you have money to spare. To give yourself one thing less to stress about determine where to put your money by setting up a budget.
If you spend your money randomly when it comes in you are likely to suffer the mental consequences. Instead of having some leftover money to do as you please you will be depleting your savings to get through the current month. Get your money in order and your daily life will improve immensely. A budget is often used for the daily grind knowing how much can be used for a certain area. To prevent your budget being undermined be sure to expect future costs. For example if you bought yourself a car a couple of years ago you should put money aside for your next car or even for car repairs.
A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it. -William Feather
Creating the budget sets you up for success. However you are only half way there. It’s important following the budget to succeed. When you have set up a budget you are able to buy anything if you manage to set money aside. If you cheat on your budget you are buying something quicker than desired but you are messing up your budget and your chance of having a stable budget that can withstand a challenge. The better you follow your budget the easier your day to day life will be. While most people believe budgets to be strict there is also the possibility of creating a flexible budget. If there are certain expenses that you will likely spend more on make sure that budget is strict. But you may have a budget for going out with friends and going to restaurants. You can have a certain amount set aside for this without allocating them in advance. The benefit this has is that you don’t have to decline an invitation by your friends.
When your income isn’t a stable amount for example working for yourself or working on commission you have to find a different way to budget. One way is to make multiple budgets depending on the money that will come in. Your first budget will be the least amount you receive. The money you made more this month can be used for the next, less important, part of the budget. If your income changes a lot from month to month make sure to not use all the excess money you receive this month. Put some extra money on the side for the harder months. Because you wouldn’t want december to be a month without money to spend. Budgets are made to prevent issues in the furure and to make sure that you are able to save money for that big expense that is coming up.