Budgeting Tips From A Single Mom

We all know that Coronavirus pandemic has affected the lives of millions of people all over the world. From richer to poorest, we are all affected by it. The pandemic changed our everyday living, how we work, how students learn, how teacher teach, how we interact with each other and how we view the world. This pandemic isolates us from our family, from our friends and form the outside world. Aside from that, this pandemic created a lot of challenges like uncertainty, unemployment because a lot of people lost their job or quit their job for a certain reason, housing insecurity, and loneliness. This pandemic has also a big impact in everyone’s mental health.

I think, even after we are now going back to normal, the effect of Covid-19 pandemic will continue to exert a toll in our daily lives and on us. I learned a lot from this experience and if I will give the most important lesson that I learned during the pandemic, I will choose that I learned how to budget and the importance of budgeting especially I am a single mom.

Being a single parent or a single mom means I am the sole responsible to my daughter’s needs. I know that I have a lot of responsibilities that is why I need to make sure and I want to make sure that her needs are met. In order for me to do that, I need to be extremely diligent when it comes to budgeting our money. This is not something that will happen by accident but I must plan and work hard for it especially that I know as a provider that things can get expensive anytime of the day.

Let me share to you some budgeting tips that helped me and might help you also that you don’t need cash advances because your money is on the right track.

• Diary/Notebook

First thing first, you need a diary or a notebook where you will write your budget. Don’t get me wrong about this because this is the first thing I did. I bought a cute notebook so that I will be inspired to do my budgeting.

• List the expenses

This is the main purpose of buying that cute notebook – to create a budget plan. I wanted to save up money that is why I need to track my expensense no matter how tedious it is at first. I listed down all our monthly expenses like utility bills, internet bills, food expenses, school expenses, and many more. I just write everything down so I can compare it to my income.

• Stick to your shopping list

I usually plan our menu every week and do our grocery shopping once a month. I follow that list and buy only what’s in it. Most of the time, I buy in bulk or those in sale rather than in “tingi-tingi” because it save more cash.

• Having fun doesn’t have to be expensive

Before pandemic, I am guilty of bringing my daughter every weekend to the mall to have fun and de-stress but when pandemic hit the world, I learned we can also de-stress and have fun without spending too much money. We can have fun buy just watching movies while eating popcorn. We can have fun by doing something together. We can have fun at the comfort of our home.

• Opening a saving account for your kid

As as single mom, I worry about my daughter’s future that is why I decided to opened up a saving account for my kid and put it in bank are secured, have an interest, and even give various benefits. Aside from that, I am teaching my daughter to save at the same time.

• Consider a sideline job

Having a sideline job or extra income is important because being a single parent, the finances are all on your shoulders alone. Aside from my online job at upwork, I also have a “mini” online shop where I sell different items that I received from blogging and some items that I buy and sell.

There are still a lot of things to be consider but these are some tips that works for me and maybe it will work for you too.