You don’t always have to do a full on budget set up or analysis.

If you’re short on time, feeling confident that all is well, or you just want a quick check-in, these 3 steps will give you what you need:

1. Look at your bank account (s) to see what has come in is what you were expecting – including refunds

2. Run down line by line to check off what has left your account and that it is correct. 

3. Double-check what is pending and that you have sufficient funds to cover those expenses – subscription renewals can be cancelled if you forgot to do this! 

This valuable little dip in and out when done regularly, will enable you to feel in control and spot errors in good time. You can also just check that what you had allocated to food shopping, for example, is looking on track. If it isn’t you can make adjustments if you need to. Either by your spending next week or tweaking your allocations elsewhere. 

If you’re not budgeting this closely to your money, as in, you’re not allocating money to any category, that’s perfectly ok! 

I often have my main expenses as one sum of cash, let’s call it £1500 that I know leaves my account every month. I can simply subtract that from my income. Let’s call that £2300. 

So I know that for everything else I have £800.

However, be mindful as I’ve learned the hard way, hence the planning element. If I don’t plan, it is so easy to spend that money so I’ve little left until payday. There’s a good chance I’ve forgotten something like a car service next month so I end up living overly frugally the following month or am forced to use an overdraft or credit card. I hate the feeling of feast & famine and find that it leaves me feeling like I’ve no control over my money. 

I’d rather have more consistent months, wouldn’t you?

One extra tip I will share with you: put this (e.g. £800) into a separate spending account so that you can always know, how much you still have left until next month to avoid confusion or going overdrawn.

I used to love my UW Cashback MasterCard which gave me money back every month based upon what and where I had spent money. It’s a genius idea! Now I live in France I can’t benefit but I would urge you to use yours. If you don’t have one, I can help set you up as I am also a partner with UW. Lower bills and cashback make that side of life a teeny weeny bit easier. 

Do leave a comment below if this has been useful or if you have other questions.

Love from

Lucy x