3 Steps To Help You Manage Your Money

How to manage your money

Do you find yourself struggling to find money by the end of the month? Are you spending too much money, but not sure where it’s all going? Finding ways of how to manage your money could help make life easier.

Some of the most frequent ways we help people in this situation include:

• Advising on social security in Scotland
• Looking at any school grants you might be eligible for
• Appealing a benefits decision

However often getting an overview of your income and spending is the best place to start. Try writing down all the places you spend money.

A great tool to help with this is our financial self-help form, which you can download below. Here’s three simple steps on how to use it. 

This will download an excel file to your computer for you to complete.

1. Work out all your income

People can get money into their household in different ways. For example, you might have a part-time job and also receive child benefit. Or you might receive maternity allowance whilst your partner works. It’s important to write down all the money that comes in each month in order to budget properly. 

Only include regular, monthly income though – things like birthday money can be helpful, but we’re looking to find out your reliable income. This is also a great financial self-help task to do regularly, especially if your income is prone to change.

 2. Write down your outgoings

It can be easy to forget what you spend some money on. And small things – like a few drinks here or a few treats for the dog there – can quickly add up. That’s why writing down exactly what you spend each month can give you a clear picture on where you could save some money. 

This monthly financial self-help form is one that we use at EDCAB. It helps us to see where household money is going.  It gives us an overall view of your income, expenditure, and how many people are living in your household. Whilst you can fill this in yourself, consider making an appointment with one of our expert advisors who can help you go through it and highlight any areas you could save money on. Get in touch to book an appointment today.

3. Manage your money  

Using this form can often show straight away where you could easily make savings. For example, you might save money by switching energy tariffs or cutting down on your mobile bill. You might not have realised how much you spend each month on petrol or home insurance. Often when insurance is renewed it goes up in cost, and this can easily be missed in a busy household. 

If you speak to one of our advisors, we can also show where you might not be receiving income that you are due. This could be Universal Credit or another type of benefit. That’s why making an appointment is a great idea – not only could we help you save money, we might find a way for you to receive more money that you are entitled to. 

So if you are looking for ways on how to manage your money, this is a great first step. Fire up your computer, stick on the kettle and spend some time filling out this form. Then, get in touch and we can go over it together.