DOES MONITORING YOUR BUDGET ACTUALLY WORK
17 February 2024
As a money coach I am often asked ‘How do I get my budget to work?’
Everyone knows a budget is a great thing to have, but whenever they put one in place, it isn’t too long before its broken and life goes back to that ‘Money In – Money out’ cycle.
So let’s explore how you can fix it, but before we do that here’s what you shouldn’t do.
Don’t ask google
Google has become our ‘go to’ tool, we just type in a question and up pops the answer however when it comes to money it is important to understand that there are two parts of successful budgeting, knowledge and application.
Here’s what I got when I asked google ‘What are the benefits of a budget’
A budget helps create financial stability. By tracking expenses and following a plan, a budget makes it easier to pay bills on time, build an emergency fund, and save for major expenses.
And next
A budget is a plan that shows you how you can spend your money every month. Making a budget can help you make sure you do not run out of money each month.
I didn’t have time to read the other 840 million results.
And while both above have some truth to them all we are doing is applying knowledge to our money. We write out a list, what is coming in, what is going out, do the math’s and then ask ourselves what’s the point of a budget anyway, it just told us what we already knew.
There is no application because the numbers are the numbers, we don’t see how anything will make any difference.
But here’s the good news, here’s how you can get ahead financially regardless of your income or past experiences with money and budgeting.
To help you understand how this works, let’s consider our day-to-day world environment.
We have things like Facebook, Instagram, loyalty cards, google, the list is exhausting but all of these have one thing in common. They monitor our behaviour. What we click on, our buying patterns, where we shop and what we seem to have interests in. My wife and I are heading to the UK for a holiday this year. We checked out a couple of accommodation options recently and now we can’t stop the bombardment we get daily of places to stay.
You know exactly what I mean, you experience the same thing so the question is, do you think businesses would invest time and money into monitoring your behaviour if it wasn’t financially beneficial, they know it’s extremely valuable to them.
And it’s also extremely valuable to you too, the benefits of monitoring your behaviour instead of the $$$ are life changing. That’s why everyone I coach, I help understand how to monitor their behaviour, not just create a budget.
When you monitor your behaviour, you get to ask yourself why you spend your money where you do rather than spending it because you need to. You start to develop an awareness of what I refer to as your value system. We will always spend or allocate our money where we value it the most.
This is why banks look over your historical activity on your bank statements when you apply for a loan. It highlights your behaviour with money and more importantly, provides insight into what you value the most.
So if you are thinking it’s time to get a budget in place that’s great but here’s my recommendation.
Monitor your behaviour not the dollars
As you go about the next 2 – 3 months, even though your spending will be dictated to by your budget, dig a little deeper and ask yourself the question.
What behaviours do you have that dictate how much your expenses are?
What could you do different, and then give it a go. You may be surprised at the outcome.
And if you have read this far then it suggests to me that you’re looking for a solution to get ahead so here’s a great place to start.
Get your hands on a copy of my book 'How I fixed my broken budget' which highlights the 7 key principles for successful budgeting and use the coupon code Behaviour
Not only will you get a discount, but I will also send you free, my ‘Identifying Behaviours’ worksheet I use with coaching clients and top 5 solutions.