Looking after your finances is tough. You can be in a good place and then suddenly be hit with an unexpected bill that causes you to fall behind. When facing an emergency, some people decide it’s best for them to take out short term loans and help them get back on their feet again. However, if you’re struggling to maintain your money, you don’t have to outsource your finance. Here are some top tips on breaking out of your financial slump so you can be comfortable and worry-free.
Reassess Your Situation
The first thing to do is to assess why you got into a financial slump in the first place. Is it caused by overspending, unexpected expenses, or does your lifestyle simply not match your paycheck? You need to understand how you go to be in this position in order to change it. Without knowing what needs to change, you can’t create an effective action plan. Try making a list of all the things in your life that you’ve spent money on in the past few months and see where you’ve overspent. These things are the most likely culprits that have led to your slump and need to be addressed.
Budget And Stick To It
Once you have a clear idea of what’s causing you money troubles, it’s time to look at how you can change things for the better. Spend an evening curating a realistic budget that takes every penny that comes in and goes out of your account so that you have a clear idea of your monthly spending. When you know how much money you have left each month, then you can start dividing it up and budgeting it for each week. Some people like to split their budget up into days, but weeks can be a little easier to stick to. Really you won’t be spending the same amount of money a day, and knowing you’ve got some to spend makes it harder to resist temptation.
Start Saving Now
If you want to break out of your slump, don’t procrastinate and start actively saving now! All the empty promises that you make to put a lump sum into your savings when you get paid are impossible to keep, so start putting money away as soon as possible. It doesn’t even have to be a lot at first. Saving little and often is a great way to easily build up your savings without having to lose all of your wages and struggle for the rest of the month. There are banking apps that allow you to save up your extra pennies whenever your buy something too. When you complete a purchase, the banking app will round your spending up to the nearest pound and pop the pennies straight into your savings account. This may not seem like much, but it soon adds up and it’s an easy way to save without having to do anything apart from spending your money like normal.
Cut Down Your Expenses
Sometimes your slump could be caused by overspending, and this can include your monthly expenses. You might not look at your takeaways as an expense, but they’re not cheap and can easily tip you over the edge of being comfortable, to having no money. Similarly, any streaming subscriptions that you have may seem insignificant, but having lots of them actually adds quite a fair bit to your monthly expenses. Try cutting down your expenses where you can. For example, try cooking more and only ordering a takeaway once a week. Or you could cancel 3 of the 5 streaming services that you pay for. You can then put the money you would have spent into a savings account each month instead. You don’t have to cut out every little luxury, but you can reduce the amount you have. These little changes can be a great way to pull you out of the slump you’ve been stuck in for so long.
Reduce Your Outgoings
As well as your monthly expenses, see if it’s possible to reduce your outgoings. Seeing how much of your wages goes on bills can be disheartening, so why not see if you can reduce them slightly. If you have loan repayments, see if you can increase them or make a one-off payment as well to help get it paid off quicker. Although it means spending more money at the time, it will drastically decrease your outgoings in the long run. Sometimes you have to pay a little more for the long term reward.
Have An End Goal
Slumps can be hard to get out of no matter the cause, but they all have one common solution that can help you immensely. Their shared resolution is to have an end goal. It’s no use wishing you were better off or had more money if you don’t have a target in mind that you can reach. Think about what you want to achieve by getting out of your slump. Do you want to have more money saved, reduced your monthly expenditures, or simply stop splurging on lots of different treats each month? Whatever your reason for wanting to climb out of your financial slump, make sure you keep it in mind and look back on it whenever you’re struggling to stick to a budget. Having a target will make it seem more worthwhile and you’ll feel a sense of achievement when you reach it.
Financial slumps aren’t easy to get out of, and sometimes it can feel like you’re stuck in a never-ending cycle of getting paid, seeing most of your money disappear, and then spending what’s left on things to make you feel happy. In order to break the cycle, and in turn, rise out from the slump you’ve been in, try reassessing, creating a budget, and saving money when you can. It doesn’t have to be difficult and before you know it, you’ll have broken the chains of your financial slump and be enjoying life to the max, but with slightly more money in your bank account.
