Household Budgets are Scary

Making a budget.  It’s the first thing that you are told to do when you get into debt, isn’t it?  Everyone you telephone with an eye to consolidation borrowing or credit cards or overdrafts wants to know what your budget is like.  They want you to tell them immediately how much you spend on shoes every November.

Do you know how much you spend on shoes every November?

If you do, then you are probably not as scared of budgets as I am.  I’ve avoided them like the plague in the past – doing anything to avoid having to draw up a budget.  I felt that as soon as I looked at a final figure, then I would know that I was doomed and might as well declare bankruptcy immediately.

However, as from last night, I am a new found fan of budgets.  My husband had a very slow day at work the other day and decided to sit down and write out a household budget.  I’m not entirely sure WHY he did this, after 15 years of avoiding it as assiduously as me, but there you go.

So we sat down last night and looked at this piece of paper with our lives on it.

Oddly enough, looking at a budget when you are in a positive frame of mind is not actually all that scary, and it certainly allows you to see where you can make some cutbacks.   In our case, we have had to have a good, hard look at our ownership of two cars.

We have my little Corsa, (now partially run on vegetable oil!) which we use for virtually everything because the fuel economy is brilliant.  We also own a big Volkswagon MPV which is used for carting around musical equipment to various gigs (husband is a drummer – it takes space) and going to medieval re-enactments (which involves more stuff than I ever believed was possible).  However, when we looked at the bottom line of what that car cost us to keep on the road partnered with how often it was used, we realised that the only sensible course of action was to sell it and not replace it.  Become a one car family again and hire or borrow another car whenever we need it.

By this one action, we can save ourselves a *significant* chunk of money every month, which we can put towards getting rid of the damned credit cards.   Actually, if we just drove it off a cliff it would still end up as a net profit!  Hopefully we can get some money for it which will enable us to eat a chunk off our cards as well.  Hooray!

And the difference between being scared of the budget and viewing it as a useful tool?  The action of just DOING IT, and a positive attitude.

Anyone want to buy a rarely used MPV?