#FinanceFridays: Dates with Your Budget
It is so important to set regularly scheduled dates with your budget. But wait, what does a date with my budget even mean? It means just that, setting a date each day of the week to have a "date with your budget". Ready your desk, have a cup of warm coffee or tea, set our your notes and get your banking apps ready to review your finances each day, week or month. I personally prefer setting weekly budgeting dates with myself and/or my partner to ensure we are on-track to achieve our goals for the month by reviewing week-to-week how we are doing.
Setting a date with your budget can alleviate a lot of ambiguity and pain down the road by ensuring we know where we stand financially day-to-day or week-by-week. I personally like to review my budget on the weekends and have set a date for every Sunday to discuss my budget casually with my best friend. It's here that we take the time to discuss how we have been spending and if we are on track with the budgeting goals we set out for ourselves the week before. We don't always get a chance to meet every Sunday so this is where our personal "dates with our budget" come in to play.
Try your best to be consistent in the days you choose to assess and review your budget. If you make it Sunday, have a date every Sunday to review your budget and do not waver. Make this like a religious commitment, whereas every Sunday some people attend church or mass, every Sunday, commit to you budget date. You can even make this daily/weekly/monthly event fun by budgeting into a "Fun Money" account money for coffee or tea so you physically take yourself out of the house with a laptop or cell phone and notepad to work on your budget your favourite coffee shop. Whatever it takes to make this a regular, consistent commitment is what we are looking for to keep our finances on track and discover if we are moving closer or further from our goals day-to-day.
Let me know what some of your tips and tricks are in keeping committed to budget review regularly? What do you do and do you incorporate a date with your budget every day / week? Let me know in the comments below! Signed, Filipina Budget Girl.
