Home Organizing & Cleaning Tips, Hints

 A few years ago, I didn’t believe in trying to set a budget. I had so many bills, that the money didn’t stretch the way it was, so what good was a budget going to do me? Now that I educated myself to learn how a budget works, I don’t think I could live without one.

 

Budgeting is more than just keeping a list of whom you owe, what you owe and when you owe it. One of the first things you have to look at is the interest rate on the things that you owe. The ones with the highest interest are paid off first and any extra money that you can come up with goes on those bills. With the amount of interest that credit card companies are charging, this can be a sizeable amount.

 

I know, you are probably thinking the same way that I did. How can I pay extra, when I cannot even pay the rest of the bills? Where am I supposed to pay the money to ‘pay me too’?

 

Since I do not have the information that I would need to help you to set a budget just for your lifestyle, I will try to organize your items according to priority and then you may be able to follow the budget line.

 

High Interest loans and credit cards--pay the amount due and add anything extra during the month even if it is only $5.00, every little bit helps. As one is paid off, use the money that you were paying on that bill to help get rid of the next highest bill. I wouldn’t divide this around too many bills, it will seem like you aren’t getting anywhere and you need to see that money amount coming down fast.

 

Call all of your creditors --and change the due dates according to the amount of the bills. Pay one large

Bill and two small bills in the same pay cycle or whatever works best for you. Set these according to your paydays. You can do this with the utility Companies too, don’t forget to ask them about going on a budget plan (they can explain this to you), it will save you a lot each month.

 

Make a list of all of the incidentals-- that you need money for during the month- like gas for the car, hair items, prescriptions, transportation, soda, coffee machine at work, toothpaste, potato chips, etc. Some of these are extras that you really don’t need and some of these are things that you forget to add to a monthly budget that always makes you short of cash because they aren’t figured in.

Once you have this list, you will find things that you can do without or that you could be spending less money on. Start checking out places like the Dollar Store, Dollar General. Family Dollar, discount stores etc. you will be surprised at the amount of things that you are paying too much for. This will help you to get added dollars.

 

Paying Yourself --You need to have pocket money, to maybe stop for a dinner somewhere, an ice cream or to just have in your pocket. Depriving yourself of the small things that life offers can cause stress and depression. Nevertheless, that is not to say that you have to get carried away in this respect either. See how much money you can have left over at the end of the week, then take half and put it away for something special or for extras later on.

 

True, this is going to take some time, after all things didn’t get like this overnight and they aren’t going to go away that fast wither, but now you have a goal, a way to accomplish the goal, a timeline to work with and money in your pocket.

 

Jan Hayner has a website called Easy Home Organizing at http://www.organizingyourlifetheeasyway.com. She provides tips, ideas and shortcuts to easy household organizing and cleaning, free printable hints, monthly newsletter and Home Inventory books. Get Free Pamphlets “50 Things To Organize In Less Than 10 Minutes” and “Guiltbusters For Working Moms”.

 

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