Budget Your Best Life

16/09/2023

Playing catch up again with my
I needed to add £35 to my savings pot to get back on track...
Sometimes life gets in the way, but you've just got to keep going and remind yourself why you're doing this

30/03/2023

For all those days when you're struggling. Whether it be physically or mentally, sometimes you've just got to dig out your big girl pants, and pull them up to your armpits 😀

In case you're wondering, this was my Mother's day card from my daughter. It has a special meaning because it's what I always say to her when things get a bit tricky or stressful ♥️

It's especially true if you're worried about and want to start paying it off. The first thing you need to know, is how much you owe. That's when you need to pull your big girl pants on and sit down and work it out.

When I was paying off some credit card debt, I made a list of all the credit cards and balances outstanding. This gave me a total debt figure. 😪

The next thing I did was looked around for a 0% balance transfer credit card and transfered the smaller debts into one place. The longer the period of the deal the better.

I used to find the best 0% balance transfer card that would suit my needs.

After that, it was just a case of paying off as much as I could every month against that 0% credit card.

It worked, and I got rid of all the debt. 🙂
It takes time and discipline but you CAN do it.

Just dig out those big girl pants....

13/01/2023

Happy New Year!

January is a month to look forward to with positivity.

Instead of setting New Year's resolutions, I set goals.

What goals are you setting in January?

Do you want to build an emergency fund?
Maybe boost your savings?
Perhaps pay off some debts?

You can read a blog post that I've written on my website - see the link in my bio.

09/01/2023

I'm at home with the "dreaded lurgy" surrounded by soggy tissues and nursing a blocked nose. To cheer myself up, I decided to do a bit of planning...

I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions, as they always seem to falter around mid-February. Instead, I choose to set goals.

So this afternoon, I'm going to put pen to paper and decide what my financial goals are going to be for 2023.

What are your financial goals for the New Year?

16/12/2022

Finally, the last few months of blood, sweat, and tears have paid off.
My new FREE eBook will be whizzing to an online bookstore near you soon!

Keep an eye out for more details :)

The Reedsy Book Editor is a free online writing tool allowing any author to format and create professional ePub and print-ready files in seconds.

08/09/2022

September has that "back to school vibe" so I thought I'd share my money routine this month.

At the beginning of each month I start by looking at how much income we have for that month and then split that money into three pots. I use a 50/30/20 ratio.

I'll move 50% across to a separate bills account, 30% will stay in my current account for day to day spending and then I'll transfer 20% to savings accounts.

Now that's the very simplistic version 😀

Obviously sometimes life gets in the way and we have to make some adjustments to those ratios. But pretty much that's what I do every month.

By adopting this simple routine, it ensures I am always putting some money aside to savings every month.

My savings include both an Emergency fund and Sinking funds. The latter are basically future expenses that I know I'll incur but haven't yet appeared. I include Car maintenance, Christmas spending and holiday spending in this category.

Here's what I've had to adjust this month.

1. I realised from looking at my list of annual bills, that I had a large direct debit about to come out of my account. I decided to smooth the expense throughout the year. So at no extra cost, I arranged for it to be monthly. I've now added this to my monthly bill tracker to make sure I move the correct amount of money each month to my bills account.

2. I also received an email from a subscription that I have which told me that the direct debit is increasing. Another change made to the .

3. Another email received from Ford money, saying that the interest rate is increasing 🥂🙌
I now need to review all my savings accounts rates and shift money to the highest paying one. I keep a note of all the interest rates in my

4. I've been using the Notes page a lot this month. Particularly with the forthcoming interest rate increases on some of my savings accounts.

Next month I'm going to be checking my page to make sure I'm on track.

08/09/2022

Today, I've changed the name of my page from She Saves Money to Budget Your Best Life.

To explain my reasons, I need to give a little bit of background.

Back in October 2019, I began to create a money routine to help me improve my personal finances. I've used this religiously for the past two and a half years. It has helped me transform my money mindset and our finances.

Because I like creating things, especially if they have a practical use, I designed my own budget planner. This is what I've been using for the past couple of years. However, before it could be printed, it needed a name, and I called it Budget Your Best Life.

I've recently been updating the contents, to make it even more useful, and I thought it might be a good idea to share how I've been using it.

It, therefore, seemed fitting that I change the name of this page to reflect the content that I want to write about.

I hope you'll find it useful. :)

08/07/2022

Received this email a couple of days ago from Marcus bank, and thought it was really interesting.

Apparently, I'm a Confident Money Manager....

Try their quiz and see what financial personality you are 😀

Let us know in the comments below.

Have you ever applied a personality-led approach to your finances? Now you can, with a free quiz from The Myers-Briggs Company and Marcus by Goldman Sachs.

07/07/2022

I've been talking to a few people recently about personal finances, and what has struck me most is people's reactions.....

Without exception, everyone has said, "ooh I'm really bad with money."

Here's my question: Do you think you're bad with money, and if so why?"

24/06/2022

Here's a quick video of the Tesco spend less web page that I mentioned earlier.