Budgets are Meant to be Adjusted

It happens to all of us, you sit down with your budget and plan for the quarter, month or week… and you get an email from your favorite brand that there’s a 35% off sale, so your $150 shopping budget ballooned to $300 because, you can definitely afford it, so why not? Then the end of your budget period comes you’re over budget every where except savings. I get it, it happens to me(more than it should considering a run a personal finance blog, but that’s life.) The important thing to do is to have that financial check in, hopefully sooner rather than later, but at some point before you sit to edit the next iteration of your budget is fine.

If this is a one off, then its an easy fix, and you can easily adjust your flexible categories(like cafe money, shopping money, and take out money) to even out the fixed ones like your savings that may have fell a little short on your last go round. However if you find that this is the second, third or fourth time you’ve blown through the same category and borrowed from others, perhaps it’s time to rethink your budget.

In an ideal world our budgets would stay at the percentages we wanted and we would hit those goals every quarter/month/week, but as our priorities grow alongside us, we have to edit our budgets to reflect that growth. For me, I know I’ve been spending more on physical books now that I don’t want to use the library as much, and that’s ok, since I’m spending a lot less on clothes and cafes since I’m leaving the house a lot less. Reading has become an even bigger part of my life during this pandemic so I’ve had to adjust my budget to reflect that it has made me happier(and made me much more likely to stick to my budget.)

As March comes to a close, I am definitely re-examining the financial goals I set forth at the beginning of the year and seeing how that compares to my spending. I pretty optimistically thought a new administration would mean a (relatively) swift transition into our new normal and with it increased earning potential(I work in the service industry, specifically restaurants, as I am pursuing my degree and it has been tough, to say the least), unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case for my city. Taking that into consideration I’ve heavily revised my financial goals for the year, generally, but specifically for the second quarter.

Give yourself some grace if your spending is not matching your budget, assess why that is and adjust accordingly. We have 75% of the year to go, we can still meet and exceed the revised (and perhaps more realistic) financial goals we’ve set for ourselves.