So many times we shy from change. But change can be good. Below are some things we have changed since we have started budgeting.

1. Planning ahead- one thing we are getting better at is using a planner to plan ahead. Yes we know that we can never account for everything but planning your month or even your year can save you time and money. By planning so far ahead you can decide now what you are going to do for summer break or even next Christmas and then you can start saving for those trips and searching for good deals on hotels or flights now.

2. Meal planning- another way we plan ahead is by meal planning. Every Saturday we set down and plan our dinners out for the week.  Before we started budgeting we constantly never knew what we were having for dinner. Then by the time dinner came we would go out to eat all because we didn’t have a plan. I know in the few short months we have been meal planning we have had to save hundreds of dollars.

3. Shopping your stock and making things ahead of time. This goes with meal planning. The first thing I do before I go to the store is look in my freezer and pantry and see what food I already have on hand and I make my meal plan around that. That way no food goes bad. Also sometimes I will cook the meal ahead of time on the weekend or parts of the meal such as ground beef and freeze until I need it. As a working mom anything I can do to save time during the week is a plus for me. Another thing I do is make my and my daughters sandwich’s ahead of time and freeze them. Just slip into lunchbox and they are thawed by lunch.

4. Movie and date nights.  Another thing we have changed is now we make Friday’s evenings special. Every other Friday we do movie night with our daughter. Movie night is were we rent or find a family movie on Netflix and we pop popcorn and make a pallet on the floor and snuggle and watch the movie as a family. We have loved doing this and I know all three of us look forward to it every week. Another thing we have started doing is date nights. So two Friday’s out of the month we send the kiddo to grandmas and my husband and I go on a date. Depending on the budget it might just be a date at home or if the budget allows we might go out to eat or to the movies. This has been so good for us to schedule planned us time.

5. School/Birthday fund

One thing we have realized since our daughter has started school this year. There are a lot of little things that come up that need paid for at school. So we have set up a school/gift fund. We use an extra checking account we have and we put money in it every month and then when she needs something for school then we can just write a check out of that fund and it doesn’t interfere with our main checking. We also use this account for gifts. Like a birthday party gifts etc. That way when these things happen we have money set aside for it.

Sometimes change is good. I know for us making these changes have been so good for us And we are looking to getting debt paid off and living debt free!

Tell me below what are you doing to save money or time?