Can you believe that it’s already August?! Now granted, we’re in my favorite half of the year, but still. Goodness, time does fly by! How are you doing on your money goals this year? What’s been your greatest success? Where do you still need to improve? There’s no shame in recognizing that we need to add a little fire to our goal progress, especially as we head into the last half of the year. So if you need a little help with coming up with some August money goals, I’ve got you covered!
1. Review and Reset Your Budget
Summer is a wonderful time, but it tends to wreak havoc on our budgets. It’s easy to spend more as you try in vain to make memories with your family and, of course, get a little R&R. And our wallets and our money goals tend to suffer a bit. So, before we get too crazy with setting audacious goals, we need to review and possibly reset our budgets.
Do a quick mid-year financial checkup. Don’t know how to do one? This post here explains it.
Identify categories where you overspent this summer and adjust for the upcoming months. Also, take note of those categories and put them somewhere that you’ll find it come next summer so when you’re making your summer budget you’ll be a little more prepared that you’re probably going to spend more in those categories.
2. Plan for Back-to-School or Fall Expenses
Even if you don’t have children, most our lives revolve around the school year. Even when my children were very small and not in school our schedule seemed to revolve around the school year. So let’s make sure we’re planning accordingly for school and fall expenses.
Set aside money for school supplies, clothing, or upcoming fall activities. You know I’m a big fan of Sinking Funds!
Start a sinking fund for holiday spending. If you haven’t yet started planning for Christmas spending now’s the time to do it! Seriously, it’ll be here before we know it. If you start setting aside $20 a week between now and Christmas day, you’ll have $420 saved in cash for Christmas spending!
3. No-Amazon August
I’ve done this No Amazon challenge for the last several years and man, is it a challenge! Amazon makes it so easy to get the things you need (and the things you don’t…). And that’s why sometimes we need to do a cleanse. Now, maybe Amazon is no issue for you, if that’s the case I recommend doing a No-Spend Month challenge instead. Same concept – bringing awareness to our spending so we can make the changes needed.
Challenge yourself to avoid impulse purchases.
Use the savings to boost your emergency fund.
4. Boost Your Savings
August is a big month in the world of economics because it typically showcases how we’re heading into the Christmas shopping season since we’re coming out of the summer spending season. So you’ll probably hear a lot more of how either the economy is doing great or we’re heading into a recession. And one thing I can tell you is this – you cannot control the economy but you can control your home economics. So that’s where you should place your focus this month.
Aim to save a set amount this month (e.g., $200 or 10% of income).
Automate transfers to savings right after payday.
5. Pay Down Debt
If you’ve followed our family’s journey to becoming debt-free, you know I’m a huge fan of living free of the chains of debt. But I also know how tough it can be on the debt-free journey sometimes. So if you’ve fallen a little slack in your progress because you were off making summer memories with your family that’s okay. It’s time to pick up the reins and start again. You’ve got this.
Make one extra payment toward a credit card, student loan, or other debt that you’re working on paying off.
Try the “round-up” method where you round purchases up to the nearest dollar and put the difference toward debt.
6. Grocery Budget Reset
I firmly believe that the fastest way to reset a budget is reset your grocery spending. Many of us have more food in our pantries and freezers than we realize – we just don’t want to eat it or go through the effort of figuring out what/how to cook it. So let’s spend a little time this month reseting our grocery spending so we can better control our budgets.
Plan meals and shop your pantry/freezer first. This is meal plan here is one of my all time favorite meal plans to use!
Aim to cut your grocery bill by 10–15% this month.
7. Review Subscriptions
Yes, it’s true that many subscriptions are only $2-$20 a month. So their savings feels very minimal. However, do you really want to keep paying for something you’re not using? How many streaming services do you pay for and how many do you actually watch? Every year my family audits our streaming services and cuts one because we only watched it a handful of times. There’s no sense paying money for something you’re not actually using even if it’s only $2 month.
Cancel any subscriptions or memberships you haven’t used in the past month. Re-direct the dollar amount that you were paying to your current financial goal (debt pay off, beefing up your Emergency Fund, investing, etc.)
Downgrade plans where possible.
8. Side Hustle or Extra Income
Remember, a side hustle doesn’t have to out earn your regular 9-5 despite what all those influcencers say. A side hustle’s purpose is to put more money in your pocket so you can put more money towards achieving your financial goals.
Sell unused items on Facebook Marketplace or Poshmark.
Take on one small freelance gig or weekend hustle to add to savings.
What goal(s) are you going after this month?
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