Should you sweat the big stuff or the small stuff when starting out?
What a great question I received from a friend, and I’ll try to answer simply.
Both of course. Watch both the pennies and the dollars
Ok, but that may be easier said than done – after all, your starting out and want to pull your finances in line, but everything seems so, well, daunting!
I’ve written about baby steps to take when you are starting to plan a budget, but what if you have to start even smaller than that to get yourself motivated?
Here’s what Hubby and I did:
We wrote out all the big expensive things we were hoping to purchase in the next couple of years. We included everything on the list that cost more than $150.00.
College fund for daughter K
New computer, (work related – but still coming from home budget)
Furniture
Cars, (new to us although not really new)
Vacations
A new Bike
On and on the list went with both practical and fun purchases.
How were we going to get there? Obviously by not charging anything on credit cards, and not by going into debt, so now we had to start watching, (sweating) the small stuff.
No more Peppermint mocha cappuccinos, no more fancy lunches out on a whim, no more heading off to my local bath and home store to browse. It was those small things that kept adding up and up and up.
In fact when we added it all up at the end of the month it could be hundreds of dollars!
So, what was the longer answer to my friend?
Set your goals for your big ticket items. Vow not to charge them or purchase before you are ready. Start watching your pennies so you can save for the larger items.
And as always. Pay off debt. Pay off debt. Pay off debt.
Everything starts to really comes together after the debt is paid off.
Next post: Number crunching – what will happen to my budget after my debt is paid off?
Additional reading from me:
One tip to jolt you!
From my co-blogger