Budgeting is a good place to start...
Take a minute to look at your income and outgoings.
Work out your income and consider other income you might receive (e.g., child benefit, child tax credit, pension credit, maintenance, and child support).
- Priority, Essentials, Luxuries, or Nice to Have: When budgeting, it can be difficult to identify what is essential and what is just nice to have.
- Your mortgage, council tax and TV licence, court fines, and loans secured on your property are all priority debts.
- Buying food and paying for utilities are essentials.
- Internet, insurance, car or public transport costs and childcare are also essential.
- Complete TV subscription packages, restaurant meals, takeaways, holidays, nights out, gym memberships, and magazine subscriptions are luxuries or nice to have.
- Non-priority debts are credit cards, unsecured loans, and hire purchases. A non-priority debt is any debt not secured by your home.
Having all this information in front of you will help you understand precisely how stretched your finances are or if there are some costs you could cut for the time being.
To help with this process, you can download and complete a budget planner here.