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How to manage when money is tight |
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By Deirdre Levinson » Your early days (or weeks and months) in
Canada can be extremely trying from a financial perspective. It is even
more so if your rainy day cash reserves are low and you either haven't
found a job or are working for really low wages.
How do you manage? It is really, really important that you don't give in to despair. A financial crunch is not easy to deal with, of course, but it is an issue that is best attacked with a proper plan.
Make a Budget: The first step you should take is to record your expenses. Every single one of them. Everything you spend from a Tim Horton's coffee to toilet paper to dinners out. Everything needs to be accounted for. The goal is to find out how much you currently spend and on what items, so that if you find you do need to scale back, you can recognize where to do so.
There are a couple of ways you can go about recording all of your purchases. One is you can carry around a little notebook and make a note every time you buy something. The other way is to charge everything you purchase with your debit or credit card and use your monthly statement as your notebook of purchases. However, if you choose to charge everything to your credit card, you must promise yourself to pay off the full amount when your statement comes. Going into credit card debt is not going to help you one bit; it will in fact make matters worse.
Once you have every cup of coffee, every grocery trip and every pair of new shoes accounted for, it's time to write it into a budget worksheet. Use a budget spreadsheet that will add up all of your expenses and subtract them from your income. When you have the form filled out, look at your bottom number. Hopefully this will be positive.
Now go up and delete your income at the top. Don't forget to delete any expenses that occur from you working (travel expenses, lunches out, etc.). Remember also that your taxes will be minimal or zero if your taxable income is below a certain figure.
If your bottom number is still positive, then you are not doing too badly. However if it's now dipped to a negative number, do not despair, it's time to look over your expenses and find ways to minimize them.
Saving on Your Expenses: Saving money doesn’t always have to be painful. Many people say its amazing how good they get at comparing prices and seeking out bargains when money is tight. Put the family on a budget and make sure everyone sticks to it.
Below are four big-ticket expenses that most households face. Let’s take a look at these and see if we can't save a couple hundred dollars right off the bat.
- Mortgage or Rent. This is often a family's largest monthly expense. The obvious way to reduce this cost is to move to a less expensive place to live, but that's not always the best option for your family. If you move to a less convenient location, your travel expenses may go up. Try looking at refinancing. That can be a fantastic way to lower your monthly mortgage payment. Plug some numbers onto an online refinancing company to see if this might make sense for you. If you rent, ask your landlord if there is anything you can do around the property that could reduce your monthly rent. Ask if you can help manage their other properties, take on the yardwork, do other chores or even sign on for a longer lease for a reduction in rent.
- Credit card, car payments and other 'bad' debt. These kinds of debts you want to try and get out of as soon as possible. Make it a goal to never get into credit card debt. There are a number of credit cards that offer zero percent interest for a specific amount of time.
- Grocery Bill. You can easily reduce your grocery bill by planning a weekly menu and making a shopping list. Designate one night a week for sitting down with the grocery ads and your cookbooks. Come up with seven different meals that take advantage of the weeks grocery sales and write down the list of ingredients you will need. There are many great website services that will plan your weekly meals and e-mail you a weekly shopping list too. Make sure to clip coupons from advertising flyers, newspapers and from coupon websites. Also try the generic version of your favourite brand. Chances are you'll never notice the difference. Stores like Bulk Barn, for example, stock well known brand name food items at huge discounts because they sell it loose rather than in expensive packaging.
- Utilities. Take Dad's advise and start turning off the lights when you leave a room. Replace incandescent lights with flourescent, get a hot water heater blanket for your hot water heater. There are a number of different ways you can reduce your energy bill. Don't hesitate to call your utilities and ask how you can save money on your monthly bill. Also ask yourself if you really need all of the gadgets you’ve become accustomed to: Do you really need a cell phone if you aren't commuting much? Do you really need the fancy cable TV package or can you live without it for a few months?
Keep moving down each category on your budget worksheet and ask yourself how you could reduce costs. Yes it involves sacrifices, but remember that it's temporary. Good times are likely round the corner, until then, tighten the buckle, and stick to your budget.
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