
Happy New Year! This year what do you plan to do to make your life easier? Exercise more? Get more organised? Go on a diet? Manage your money better?
One of our team members has decided to commit more to her budget and life planning. As a first thing, now that it is available for iOS, she has installed the new ĠEMMA budget app on her iPhone and has been faithfully inserting her expenses and savings. Admittedly sometimes it happens with some delays because she is in a hurry to get home from the supermarket, or because there is no chance to insert the amount while refuelling her car. To date, she has not forgotten to put in anything: diesel, pet supplies, kid’s private lessons, a chai latte and her mobile monthly fee. She intends to stick to it.
Yes, after just a few days she realised that she is spending a lot more than she thinks because even the little things matter and expenses pile up quickly. This is precisely why she wants to stick to it; she wants to save for some important stuff and this way she can monitor her spending and her saving. In fact, she has set a percentage for saving in the app which she found helps a lot.
Another nifty app she downloaded was a free shopping list app. She had one of those way back and shifted to Notes when she got her iPhone, but she was hoping to find something easier to use. The one she found has a meal planner and a recipe function which link to it, but she noticed that she would have to pay extra for the features, so she is trying to put down her meal planning in her phone calendar and then list the ingredients in the list.
For one thing, she can share her list with family members who can do the shopping when she cannot: a burden shared is a burden halved. Hint make sure if you share the app that your other family members do not shop at the same time as you do! She can schedule her preparation and cooking alongside her meal planning. She along with everyone at home have a lot going on this year apart from work and school, so they need to plan meals accordingly. This will cut down on unhealthy ready made meals and deliveries. It is already making a whole lot of difference, knowing something which needs to be reheated or simply needs some final cooking time rather than getting home after a long day and having to figure out what to cook, or nagging others to do the cooking, or giving up and getting a delivery.
Absolutely! The system gives her more peace of mind because she feels organised and in control. It may not always go to plan: she may forget to insert an expense in her budget app and remember the following morning, but it has definitely led to a reduction of little ‘wants’ which used to add up her expenses. There may have to be substitute ingredients in the planned recipes because they were not found in the cupboard or while shopping but it still beats an expensive delivery. So here’s to 2023 with a bit more focus on better spending and saving.