When it comes to financial security, building a budget is the second most important thing to do. The top item is tracking your expenditures. After mastering both of those, you may think that you have this whole personal finance thing licked. Unfortunately, there are plenty of little things lurking in the darkness that can derail all of your plans or at least set you back. Here are a few things that can wreck your budget for a few weeks or for the long haul.
Those Darn Expenditures
What happens to many of us once we have been working within a budget for a long time? Complacency. That general feeling that we have ''been there, done that,'' so we stop being quite as careful. It comes on slowly. Maybe you buy a soda with cash and just don't write it down. The next thing you know you are looking at your wallet and wondering where the cash went. I have been on a budget for more than a decade now and I still catch myself becoming complacent from time to time.
Not Planning For Entertainment
A common issue for new budgeteers is planning for large entertainment. Yes, they will add an amount for a vacation, but forget the monthly night out. It is never cheap to go out, especially if you have children. Take a trip to a movie theater with two children and you can see how your budget would be in tatters that week. If you are still in the dating game, you know how expensive that can be. Running up against a budget that does not have an entertainment component is a sure way to either blow the budget or stop budgeting altogether.
Paying For Convenience
Our economy is based on convenience. Just look around you. Convenient fast food joints are every where. Nearly every gas station has a ''convenience'' store. Other conveniences include quick oil change locations, paying someone to mow your lawn or remove snow, etc. When I stopped frequenting the local burger trap, I saved an average of $20 per week. Passing the convenience store part of the gas station saved me another $25 a week. Sure, it was annoying at first, but that $45 a week sure helped lower my credit card debt.
While these are not all of the ways you can defeat your own budgeting efforts, they are pretty common ones. So, how do you prevent the damage from taking place? The first step is to recognize the damaging habits in yourself. The second is to redefine your budget. Make sure you build a monthly entertainment component into it. Thirdly, review your goals. What are the reasons that you are budgeting? Re-examining those goals and reasons should help you cut back on the convenience stops you make each week.
One other thing to keep in mind when you find yourself slipping off your budget a bit: we all do. There isn't a single person out there that hasn't missed their budget goal from time to time. The trick is to notice the slip, correct it, and get back in the groove.
