How to build a budget and lower your costs

There are so many options out there for creating your own budget – programs you can download, books you can buy etc.

A lot of these are costly, complicated and confusing. The whole idea can already be daunting, so here is a great way to do it quickly and easily. Gail Vaz-Oxlade has a super simple way to create your budget.

It’s free, easy to read and understand, you don’t need anything to get started. 6 quick steps and you’re on your way!

And I love her tips on how to improve it, get your costs lowered, earn a bit more money and so on. It’s all very true, you can easily phone your utilities and ask for discounts, if there’s any special promotions and you’ll be surprised at how many bills you can get lowered. Once you have all your bills listed you can figure out which ones to call for a discount. And check your local area for special programs too – Manitoba Hydro has a lot of options. There are all types of Power Smart savings and loans, you can retire an old fridge and get $40, and they will even send you a kit with water and heat saving equipment, like a low flow shower head etc. It’s a very nice kit.

Another big one to reconsider is groceries and household products – you can easily lower those by watching for sales, stocking up on your favourites when you find them on clearance, ordering meat at the butchers in bulk, following store promotions, and of course using coupons 🙂    

What are your tips for making a budget? And ways to lower the costs once they’re all listed? Any other good programs out there for lowering costs?