Why do I need a budget? How will it help me?

A budget is an estimate or plan of expenditure. You need to be able to cover your spending from your earnings. For you to maintain a balanced financial position in your own household, and for you to be able to get out of debt and stay out, you need to spend within your own plan, your own budget.

Borrowing is a part of modern living but if you are in debt to the extent that it has become a problem, then you are probably living outside your budget, spending beyond your means, and you need to make some changes.

A budget enables you to manage your finances so that you don't spend more than you earn, or than you can repay across a reasonable period of time. It enables you to manage your day-to-day spending as well as plan for future expenditure.

A budget gives you the full picture of where you are financially. You can look at your debt problem in detail, and get down to the nitty gritty of your own personal finances, to pave the way for a debt reduction solution that best suits you. A budget won't reduce your debts, but it will provide you with the information that enables you to make the changes that will. But you do need to take some action.

You might think that you don't need a budget, that you can do without it because your situation is so straightforward, but that is probably not the case. It is unlikely that you can remember every penny you spend in the course of a week or a month, and it is by reducing spending a little bit here, a little bit there, that useful sums can be saved over a period of time.

In my grandparents time they had a saying  -  " if you look after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves" and by budgeting sensibly that is certainly the case.

With a carefully crafted budget, and a responsible attitude to future spending on your part, you can control, then reduce and finally eliminate debt from your life.