Your Best Budget Part 1: Why you aren’t staying on budget

Welcome to the Fearless Girl Finance ‘Your Best Budget’ series! This is a 4-part series with new content released each week on how to stay on budget, plus lots of challenges and ideas that will help to make your budget feel like fun.  This week we’re focusing on common reasons why you aren’t staying on budget. 

Budgeting can seem dreary or conjure up images of constant sacrifice and deprivation. But a good budget is incredibly empowering, allowing you to prioritise your goals and the freedom to pursue your passions.  

For the Fearless Girl method of budgeting, read this article first! Then you can get cosy with your favourite drink, arm yourself with your favourite notebook and pen and get ready to be 100% real with yourself – it’s time to work out why you aren’t staying on budget.  

1. Table of Contents

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   You aren’t actually budgeting for all of your expenses

If you’ve set a tight budget based on a month when your friends were away, there were no big birthdays and you didn’t leave home for a week because you had the plague, then there is absolutely no way you are going to make it through a month where your bestie turns 30, your colleague gets promoted and wants to celebrate and it’s a national holiday.  

The key here is to adjust your budget on a monthly basis, making sure that you account for something called ‘sinking funds’, which is money set aside over a longer period of time to account for future expenses – like Christmas or Eid gifts or a weekend away for your friend’s birthday celebrations.  

2. You’ve had a run of bad luck and you don’t have an emergency fund.

Picture this: your car has broken down, you need a new prescription on your glasses, a wisdom tooth is coming through and causing you agony and, just to round out the misery, your apartment has a leak.  

Although you’ve been sticking to your budget for the month, this is going to rip a hole through your carefully planned budget, leaving you dining on Pot Noodles and porridge oats for the rest of the month.  

Now picture this: all of the above happens, but you have 6 months worth of expenses sitting in a high-yield savings account and you can calmly withdraw enough money to cover this horrendous month, and still have enough in your budget to treat yourself to a massage to get over all that stress.  

An emergency fund is an absolute necessity for all Fearless Girls (click here to find out why women actually need a larger emergency fund) as it will buffer any bad luck you have. If you have made saving for your emergency fund a habit already, then you can top it back up as you go – no stress, no ruined budgets, no menty B’s.  

3. You spend emotionally

Do you reward yourself with cocktails when you give a great presentation at work? Treat yourself to Deliveroo when you’re having a bad period? Buy a new workout outfit to motivate yourself to get out for a run?  

You, my Fearless friend, are an emotional spender. The rush you get from spending will wear off, and you may even end up feeling more stressed and guilty. The way forward is to get really comfortable with your own emotions (sorting your finances doubling as therapy? Thank me later)  

Journal how you’re feeling when you get the urge to spend off-budget to start noticing patterns and triggers for overspending. If you struggle with ‘free journalling’, try asking yourself these three questions: 

• Why do I want to spend this money right now?  
• How do I want to feel when I spend this money? 
• What else can I do that will give me that feeling without going over budget 

4. Your budget feels like a diet

Really restrictive diets work right up until the point where you cave to cravings and then wake up from a fugue state surrounded by McDonald’s bags (or is that just me?) 

An overly-restrictive budget will have the exact same effect. There’s a balance between spending without control and controlling yourself too tightly, and the line between them is precariously thin. Our method of budgeting ensures that you have enough money each month to enjoy your daily latte, a meal out with friends or a trip to Zara, while still working towards your financial goals.  

Now you know why you aren’t staying on budget…but why does it matter?

Whether you aren’t staying on budget by not saving or you are living beyond your means, the negative consequences will increase exponentially – debt, credit cards you can’t pay off and a huge drain on your mental health can send you into a spiral of continuous overspending (click here to read about our three foolproof methods for clearing debt as a result of overspending). 

Having a budget should feel freeing, as it puts you in control. When every cent, penny or fil is doing its’ job, then you know you can spend your fun money without guilt or worry. Have any of these resonated as the reason why you aren’t staying on budget? Let us know in the comments below or tag us on Instagram @fearlessgirlfinance_  

Click here for part 2 – 5 practical ways you can stay on budget! 

Click here for part 3 – 8 frugal swaps that you won’t even notice

Click here for part 4 – how a no-spend challenge could lead to financial freedom