We all have faced a financial crisis at least once in our life. This doesn't necessarily be a major one. But we all know there are times that we want to buy something but we can't. So at that time how trivial it seems later it's a crisis at that time. We feel upset , desperate and even depressed about the situation.
For some of you , you may have been independent financially before but after marriage may have given up your job. So you know even if the husband is providing us and let us do what we want but there can be times we feel guilty for buying something we wanted but not essential to life
As a family we face a lot of strains in times. We are also undergoing such a situation. We bought a new house, and so whole lot of new stuff for the house and our baby is on the way. So many new things so obviously we have to spend a lot all of a sudden.
So here are few steps we did to understand our situation and save some money in the process.
1. Record all your expenses
Even it's of 1$ we recorded and for what reason we spent. This gave us a big insight as how much we were spending.
This led to discover our unnecessary expenses.
In Pinterest and various blogs there are many formats and forms and tables to fill these. I was surprised too that some people have them for sale.
Please don't worry just get a book and start recording in your own way.
I sometimes kept the bills too. Usually we threw them away but this habit also helped a lot to analyse further more.
2. Write down your shopping list.
My husband is a list oriented person. I was not. So even if he demanded I was telling him why can't you remember the list in your head.
But now I know the real importance. If not for the list we will be roaming around the aisles in shops and spent loads on things we didn't plan to buy.
Have you noticed in supermarkets milk is placed at the very end. So we have to pass all the interesting looking goods to reach it. So what happens? We fill the cart with unnecessary things.
So write a list where you have the guide!
3. Reduce the number of shopping trips.
Before we started this process we never paid attention how many times we went out for shopping. We didn't plan. We just went out to buy it when the need arise. So , so much of fuel was lost for nothing and sometimes had paid for parking unnecessarily.
So plan your route of shopping before leaving home and you'd be surprised how efficient you become too in time management.
Before our weekend was wasted away for shopping. But now we plan and we can have a free time in week ends.
This is the beginning of how we started to manage our expenses. Let's talk more how we proceeded further.
With much love and hugs!!!!!
