There are loads of articles on budgeting and how to write a budget but it seems to me that the hardest part about budgeting, much like dieting, is sticking to it!

I’ve just finished reviewing my spending and doing a budget, however it’s the sticking to it that is the problem in our household. I’ve let my fingers do the walking  and found some ideas that I’m going to try to put in place to actually STICK to our budget this time! They’re not rocket science or particularly difficult (the best ideas never are), just good, basic, tried and true methods.

Keep track of your spending.

I’m not sure how I’m going to keep track of it yet, it might be spreadsheet or it might be something fancier but I’m going to track every cent we spend, each week I’ll sit down and enter them into whatever tracking system we use. I’m also going to get both myself and my husband to keep every single receipt for every single purchase so that we can cross check with our accounts but also to make us aware of how much we actually spend.

Set goals and savings targets

We did this as part of our budgeting. We set short term, medium term and long term goals so that we are clear about what we want to achieve over the next 5 years financially so we can both work towards it.

Use cash

It’s so easy to just keep putting everything on the credit card without being aware of how much you’re really spending. I thought it might be a useful exercise to take cash out and use that for day to day spending rather than the credit card. We’ll soon see how quickly it disappears.

What are your tips for sticking to a budget?

These are some of the sites I visited in my research for this post

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/32-hacks-for-sticking-to-your-budget.html
http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/budgeting/10-tips-for-staying-on-budget.htm#page=2
https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/how-to-stick-to-a-budget-and-save-money