Managing Money As A Single Parent – Part 02
Welcome to the latest series here at the wildly popular JosephSangl.com – “Managing Money As A Single Parent”!
Part Two Eliminate as much work as possible!
Your time is extremely valuable. As a single parent who must run kids to practice, go grocery shopping, ferry kids back and forth from school, and, oh yeah, work, you realize more than most people that there are only 1,440 minutes in a given day. To ensure you have enough time for the most important things in life, seek to eliminate as much work as possible when it comes to managing your money.
To ensure you have enough time for the most important things in life, seek to eliminate as much work as possible when it comes to managing your money.
One key way to do this is to automate every bill you possibly can. For individuals or businesses who can’t accept automatic online bill payments, establish automatic checks. This is a free option from nearly every major bank.
For impulsive spending categories like food (grocery and restaurants), clothing, entertainment and spending money, use cash envelopes. Once you are paid, withdraw cash for the budgeted amount you’ve allocated to each of these categories. Put the money into an envelope and only use the money for these impulsive expenses. Once the money is gone, don’t spend money in that category until you are paid again. Employing these principles not only reduces the time you have to focus on money, but it also makes budgeting much simpler.
PRACTICAL STEPS TO TAKE:
- Establish automatic bill payments for your monthly bills as much as possible
- Implement the Cash Envelope System (see my short YouTube video explaining this in more detail)