Managing When Your Salary Won’t Make The Month

I am sure you’ve found yourself in the situation where your monthly salary just won’t cut it. I struggled for many years making ends meet, trying to stretch my salary as far as it would go and attempting to hold on by my fingertips to what I had as the month neared the end, only to have another bill fly through my letterbox.
Money troubles isn’t something only you are struggling with, believe me, there are thousands of people around the world in the same situation. But it was once I started putting simple practices into place that I actually started saving money rather than spending it.
I think the recession was the biggest wake up call for so many families; in fact it was the middle class families that took it the hardest. Parents were losing jobs and are now trying to get by juggling a number of part time jobs just to make ends meet.
My hardest time was when my husband lost his job; we spent our days searching to find him another job, while I worked my fingers to the bone to try and make money for rent, council tax, food and electricity. It wasn’t easy and then we started planning; putting a clear budget in place and slowly everything fell into place. Now that my husband is working again, his money goes into our savings. This was a precaution in case we end up in this situation again.

Plan Ahead
When you aren’t making enough money it’s so difficult to plan ahead, but if I can do it you can too. We started with setting a monthly food budget, using discount vouchers and buying in bulk saved us a lot of money. We were even able to treat ourselves to a meal out a couple of times a month; not bad going on my measly salary.
Budgeting is much easier than you may think as all you need to do is write down all the bills that must be paid. If you keep on top of your accounts you don’t end up with any late penalties; another way to save money.
Use Your Resources
For me to say to you that you have a credit card so use it may sound completely insane, but at the same time I am going to say only use it if you can afford to pay it back; otherwise it ends up more of a burden.
My credit card was used for petrol and grocery shopping. We made sure we only used what I could pay back at the end of each month, this reduced the amount of interest owed and helped keep my credit score on track.
When I walked in a shop and saw something I really wanted, I would walk away and think about it, giving myself three days before going to buy it. Often I found I didn’t need it or wouldn’t use it and never ended up buying it. Of course there will be things you have to buy such as new clothes, but be sure you can afford it: don’t spend what you don’t have.
There were occasions when a bill would come through for immediate payment; remember we had struggled for quite a while so the bills just kept coming, no matter how hard I worked. We paid back what we could each month, but some months this wasn’t enough.
At the time I had to enquire into getting a payday loan. Again I used this like a credit card, only taking what I could afford to pay back at the end of the month. The advantage is that these small amounts helped get us through to the next payday. Sometimes I would borrow £100 and other months £300, it just depended on what we needed, but again I’m going to say it to make sure you understand: only ever borrow what you can afford to pay back, you don’t want your credit rating to plummet and you want to remain in good standing wherever possible.
As the months go by and you get into the habit of budgeting and managing your salary, you will find that the little things you do to save money can make a big difference and before you know it your money will be getting you through each and every month.
William Bancs is a freelance writer that enjoys finding ways to make your money spread further. Payday loans uk was just one of the many solutions he found along with other recommendations of planning ahead and using your resources.