The intention when making a budget is to create something that will help give structure to the way that you spend money and, therefore, an element of consistency to your finances. While it can be effective in giving you a general rule to live by, a budget can struggle to accommodate those times when you need to make a single, big purchase.
This might be due to the fact that this purchase doesn’t easily fit into any one category, or that you just haven’t taken into account that you might have to do this at some point. As a result of this, you might find it difficult to make room in your finances for such a spend, which can be difficult when it’s essential.
Research Alternative Methods of Payment
When buying something that’s relatively small and low-cost, chances are that the methods available to you for purchase are limited and straightforward. However, the bigger that this potential purchase becomes in price, the more likely it is that there will be some sort of alternative payment method in place for the many people who can’t afford to lose that much money at once.
Thanks to these options, you might be able to find a way to approach your problem that fits cleanly within your budget, as normally these payments work incrementally instead of in one go.
Let’s say, for example, that your big purchase of choice is to be a car. Cars can be expensive and comes with other costs (such as insurance) that can make it even more difficult to afford, but you’re immediately presented with a few ways to make this payment more manageable.
First of all, you could opt to buy a used car instead of a new one, which can drastically reduce the cost without providing many negatives if you choose the right outlet. Secondly, financing your car offers you a method of paying for this incrementally, making the process even more affordable. If this is something that could fit your needs perfectly, researching used car finance could well be the next move you should make.
Shift Around Your Funds
The categories within your budget will usually fall into one of two major groups: essential and non-essential. In fact, some people may organize their budget in such a way that only the essential spends are documented, leaving the non-essential spending up to your discretion.
If this is the case, you might find it more difficult to divert funds away from any of their allotted locations, but it might still be possible.
Food shopping, while definitely essential, can often be where some flexibility may be applied due to how it rarely operates as a fixed bill, unlike something like electricity.
It could be worth your time to take a look at what you spend during your regular food shop, examine whether you could spend less by going for the ‘budget’ versions and if so, consider giving it a try. While you might be opposed at first due to the potential drop in quality, you might find that in reality it barely makes a difference to anything other than the bill.
