A Little Here, A Little There {Day 18 of 21 Days of Hope + Help for Your Money}

This is Day 18 of 21 Days of Hope + Help for Your Money, a series providing you encouragement and tips to start the year off on a note of hope. Catch up on previous posts here. For future posts, come back daily or subscribe to have them emailed directly to you.

“Nothing can be done except little by little.” — Charles Baudelaire

If you discovered that you overspend by $1000 every month and were challenged to close the gap, would you throw your hands in the air and declare there’s no WAY?

That response would be understandable. I mean a thousand dollars is a lot of money to be short, and unless you blatantly and frivolously overspent $1000 every single month, it would be hard to see how you could overcome that deficit.

I was once in that position — times two. At my rock-bottom point in my finances, my family and I were $2000 in the hole every month— $2000. When I discovered that, I was floored. And disgusted. And frustrated. How would I overcome that? How could we reduce our expenses by $2000 a month?

The answer, it turns out, was by cutting back a little here and a little there. Once we decided we were going to figure out how to overcome that deficit and that it was possible, we got to work. We reviewed our expenses to see if we could shave off a little here and little there.

Long story short, we did it.

If you discovered yesterday, that your percentages are out of whack, don’t throw your hands in the air and declare defeat. Use the “a little here, a little there” approach to get your expenses in line with your income.

Small changes in multiple areas can amount to significant change overall.

Action Step

Trim Your Biggest Spending Category

If you completed the action steps on Day 16 and Day 17, then you’ve created a full budget for the coming month, and you’ve calculated the percentages for your categories.

Now, identify the one or two categories you spend the most in. Grab a pen and paper and brainstorm all the ways you can reduce that category. It could mean cutting one expense, shaving off a little from one, and shaving off a little from another.

Write down a list of all the possible ways you can spend less and take action on the ones that will make the most impact on your budget.