These 6 Questions to ask before budgeting will save you money in the long run!

Have you ever thought about WHY you spend your money? Not just WHAT you spend it on? Being able to answer the why question is a powerful step in gaining power over your money.

Sometimes the motives for why lay very deep in our heart. Our habits with money often stemmed from watching parents and grandparents use their money. But were they good habits?

Now as adults lets take a closer look at what motives us to spend our hard earned cash and what we spend it on. I was able to survey 100s of people and here are some of their answers.

My question was “When you spend money, what motivates you?” I’ve also included ideas on how to keep these spending habits in check with some Budget Booster tips.

Hobbies

We all need something to refresh our mind and give us something to enjoy other than work, work, work. So I’m not going to say, ditch your hobbies to save some money, but think through your home. Do you have former hobbies that you no longer have a passion for?

For me it was a jewelry making phase. I had all the wires, cutters, beads, clasps and jewels you could imagine. But after a while, I just put it up and it sat on my shelf, in perfectly good shape being completely useful.

Budget Booster: Sell it. Gather all those hobby items together and sell them to someone else who might really appreciate and love your gently used and formerly loved, hobby. LetGo is an awesome app and it’s really quick and easy to use. You can just snap a picture and post it. Then anyone can message you right in the app, no email hassle at all.

Experiences

Creating family memories is a very valuable gift we give to ourselves. I think we often undervalue doing things together and being with one another. In the busyness of life TIME is precious. Creating wonderful experiences takes some planning and also money. But being a savvy saver means you can often find deals.

Budget Booster

Museum’s – Check their calendar. Some days are free or discounted on because of special holidays. Write those days down on your calendar so you wont forget.

Concerts – Look for discount tickets on Craigslist. You never know who might be unable to go, last minute.

Restaurant – Lunch is always less expensive so plan an afternoon together instead of an evening out.

Books 

This is a big one for me and for my husband! We LOVE to read and even though we have move almost 40 boxes of books around the country with us on our moves and we say, this is enough, we always find ourselves back at the bookstore again.

Budget Booster: Again my go to app Letgo is great for selling some of your books if you know you wont be reading them again. And we all know that we bookworms will continue to buy books until we die there are a few ways we can save in the process.

First off, get to know your library! It’s free!

Secondly, use www.AddAll.com It searches over 40 different sites and compares the cheapest price including the shipping! This way you save time and money knowing you received the best price possible for your books!

Gifts

Gifts are a way of showing people that we care. This can really lift someone up when it’s unexpected too. I’ve written a whole post on gift giving ideas too.

Personal Happiness

Taking care of ourselves is important. As women we give, give, give yet sometimes we do need to take care of us, pamper ourselves and enjoy fun things. But not overly so, that can lead to some budget disasters too.

Budget Booster: I’ve found that you can get some great deals on pedicures, hair cuts, hair styling and massages at Technical colleges and training schools. The students need to learn their trade but they also need a real human to practice on and you receive a great rate too. Win-win.

Kids

Every Mom reading this can say this is true, whether they are little or grown. This is often a gift we give to our children to show them that we love them because how we feel towards are kids is so great, it’s almost as if we can’t do enough to show them how we feel.

Boredom

“I’m bored.” Coming from the mouth of my 4 year old it made me laugh. I told him when I was growing up on the dairy farm in NY I NEVER dared say those words. It would have landed me a long list of more chores I could be doing. Even if I thought those words they never came out of my mouth! So I told him, he could do some work if he was bored. He happily agreed and was soon scrubbing the bathtub for me. He called out a few minutes into the job, “I love working, I’m not going to play anymore.” Haha, well, that didn’t last very long.

Sometimes boredom can be filled by planning out activities for ourselves or our kids. Card making, play dates with others, library time, starting a side hustle, or visiting a nursing home to cheer others up. It just takes a little planning and planning is FREE.

Everything listed can be part of your budget and to be a savvy saver the best thing to do is evaluate your spending and see first WHAT you are spending your money on and then evaluate WHY.

1. Is it love for someone?
2. Is it to make yourself feel better?
3. Is it because your parents always did it just that way?
4. Is it tradition?
5. Is it to compensate for something you feel is lacking? Status, popularity, keeping up with the Jones etc?
6. Is it because your sense of worth?

These are all important question which you need to ask and answer. Your financial future depends upon what you say.

Having a budget is CRITICAL to knowing your day to day spending flow but beyond that you also need to know your net worth if you plan on retiring well. Net worth is your assets after debt. You might make $70,000 but be in $30,000 worth of debt leaving you with negative net worth. But asking yourself why you spend that money and what motivated you to spend that money is a great first step at changing!

Be sure to sign up for the Savvy Saver Tribe newsletter and stay motivated to save money! You wont regret it.