Money Management /

Creating a budget you can stick to

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Mention the word budget and you are rarely greeted with gleeful excitement, hands clapping together and a ‘Yay let’s get started’. However, the fact remains that a budget is the cornerstone of any financial plan. If you do nothing else with your finances, do this one thing. It will change your life…for the better.

Follow these simple steps to develop a budget that works for you and you will never look back.

1. Track your spending

The first step is to know where your money goes.  Spend a couple of weeks keeping track of your purchases, impulse or otherwise, to get a real idea of what you are spending your money on, prepare to be surprised. And yes, there is an app for that.

2. Use a budget calculator to input your income and expenses

This might take a minute – make yourself a cup of tea. Use info from your spend tracking to input figures. Your bank statements also come in really handy here, because let’s face it – who remembers what their last electricity bill was. You should be able to access your bank statements or transaction history via internet banking.

3. Review your results

If you are spending (or plan to spend) less than you earn you will have a budget surplus. This is money you can use to save for a car, holiday, house deposit or rainy day. If you are spending (or plan to spend) more than you earn (as is more often the case), you have some more work to do on your budget – please proceed to step 4.

4. Tweak the numbers

The beauty of using a budget calculator is that you can play with the numbers to instantly see the overall impact of different scenarios. Some of your costs will be fixed – nothing you can do about that, we all need a roof over our head. Instead focus on the numbers you can change – these are usually related to discretionary spending on food, clothes, going out etc. Review the numbers from your spend tracking results and look for ways you can cut back. Try a few different options and, if you want to give yourself a fighting chance of sticking to your budget, make sure your cuts are reasonable.

5. Review

Making a budget only to shelve it and carry on as you were = fail. Make some time each pay period to review what you actually spent against your budgeted spend. It might take a while to get to a point where your budget works for you. Stick with it, it will be worth it in the long run.

To get started on a basic budget, use the IMB Bank Budget Planner.

Get started

Why choose us?

Established in 1880, IMB Bank is one of the most enduring financial institutions in the country, helping people achieve their financial goals for over 140 years. Our members can access a fully featured range of services: home and personal lending, savings and transaction accounts, term deposits, business banking, and more.

Our renowned personal service is backed by innovation, providing convenient, secure digital banking options where and when you want it. IMB also has a growing retail branch network throughout NSW and Victoria, for when you need to speak to someone in person, and a team of professionals at our locally based contact centre. We have a lending specialist in every branch and a team of mobile lending specialists who will come to you.

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