Budgeting for a normal month is hard enough as it is – add an extra week into the mix, and money can get even tighter. We’ve rounded up our top methods on how to budget for a 5 week month, including spending limits, useful apps, supermarket money-saving tips and some free activities to help reduce non-essential spending, below.
Try the 50-30-20 Budget Rule
According to HSBC, the 50-30-20 rule is a useful tool to help you manage your spending. The aim is to spend:
- 50% on Needs: Essential costs, e.g. mortgage or rent, household bills, food, transport, etc.
- 30% on ‘Wants’: Non-essential expenses, such as eating out, shopping, holidays or short trips, monthly subscriptions, etc.
- 20% on Savings or Debt: If applicable/possible, paying off debt beyond minimum payments or putting money into a savings account, investment, or pension fund.
If you can’t afford to put 20% toward your savings, don’t worry – spending it on essential costs is more important, especially when trying to budget for a 5-week month.
The same applies to debt, if the minimum payments are all you can afford to make, you’re still taking a positive step towards getting your finances back on track. However, if you have fallen behind with your debt payments, please contact us for confidential debt advice.
Use What You Really Have
If you find yourself looking in the fridge or cupboard and thinking, “we’ve got nothing in”, but you could really do without another expensive food shop – try one of the following websites/apps:
- SuperCook: Add the ingredients you already have into a virtual pantry and it’ll find recipes from over 18,000 websites.
- MyFridgeFood: Select the ingredients you have and a list of matching recipes will come up.
- BigOven: Features an ‘Ideas’ section to help use up ingredients, along with community recipes.
If you genuinely have nothing in, head to Aldi or Lidl (Which?’s cheapest supermarkets for the last 5 years), and stock up on long-lasting food items such as pasta, rice, beans, frozen vegetables, etc. Then you should have enough to quickly throw something together during your “we’ve got nothing in” moments.
Buy from the Reduced Section
When you’re doing your weekly food shop, look for those yellow stickers! Even though the items in the reduced section usually expire the same day you buy them, most of the time, you’ll be able to freeze your purchases to use at a later date.
Fun Fact: Co-founder of Latestdeals.co.uk, Tom Church, did an experiment where he only bought reduced items for a year, and ended up saving £3,400.
We would also recommend browsing the ‘world food’ aisle for bulk, staple food items (such as rice and spices) where you can get them much cheaper compared to smaller containers in other aisles.
Top Tip: Leave your food shop as late as you can. Before closing time, supermarkets want expiring items to be off their shelves, which usually means they reduce them to a fraction of their original price. Always compare reduced items to full-price, supermarket-own items to see whether the saving is worth it, and if it is, check if the food items can be frozen to make them last longer.
Take Advantage of Free Activities
To reduce non-essential spending, why not try a free day out? You could head to your local park or beach, or if you’re close to any of the following free-entry museums, you could visit:
- The Natural History Museum, Hertfordshire or London
- Imperial War Museum North, Manchester
- National Railway Museum, York
- Lapworth Museum of Geology, Birmingham
- Discovery Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
- The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
- Ulster Museum, Belfast
Is Budgeting a Struggle?
If you’re struggling to make your money last altogether, let alone budget for a 5 week month, you may need professional support. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and get free*, confidential debt advice from our trusted team. We also offer a range of debt solutions designed to help you get back on your feet again.
When you first reach out, you don’t have to talk to us on the phone if you don’t want to. Our approachable debt advisors are also available via email, WhatsApp or webchat. If you’re short on time, we also have a free online debt advice tool available 24/7, and takes less than 15 minutes to complete.
*Our advice is free, but if you sign up for a debt solution, a fee will apply for some solutions.
