Mortgage problems? Basic budgeting tips that could help

If you are struggling with your finances - for example, you’re finding find that your day-to-day expenditure is taking up too much of your income, or that it’s hard to make your debt repayments - then you should seek financial support.

One kind of financial support you could get is budgeting advice.
Budgeting advice

Before you make any changes to the way you manage your finances, you should create a budget. A budget is a detailed plan showing how much you earn/receive, and where the money goes, on a monthly basis.

In order to create a budget, you will need to start by calculating everything you earn/receive (for example - salary, benefits and grants) and everything you spend/pay out (secured debt repayments, mortgage / rent payments and food, for example). Don’t include payments to your unsecured debts or non-essential spending at this point.

Once you’ve done this, you can work out your disposable income (income minus essential expenditure).

Your disposable income is the money that’s available for payments towards your non-priority debt (for example - credit cards, store cards and unsecured loans) and, if there is anything left after this, savings and non-essential spending.

Benefits of budgeting

* By budgeting, you can see where all your money is going and make sure you have enough set aside each month to make payments to all your financial commitments - avoiding the risk of missing payments.
* After writing down all your income and expenditure, you should be able to see where you can make cutbacks to save yourself money. It may be a good idea to write down the potential savings, as seeing exactly how much you could be saving can help you stay motivated when you’re making cutbacks.

Budgeting isn’t always straightforward. It’s easy to overlook or miscalculate some of the ways you’re spending money - but there are many companies that provide free debt advice. If you’d like some help with this, you should contact a professional debt adviser and ask them to take you through the process.