Creating A Fool Proof budget and Taking control of your finances as a single mother can have Unbelievable, almost magical effects in all areas of your life. I know, that sounds like quite a dramatic statement to make, but I know from experience that as a single mother we can often feel as though life is running away from us and we are losing control of our lives… and occasionally our minds. Most of us didn’t want to be single parents and were given no choice, but even if you made the choice to be a single parent, doing everything alone all of the time can make it difficult to keep on top of everything and our finances are often one thing that gets neglected. This is why Budgeting for single mothers is so, so important… and I will explain why.
Budgeting For Single Mothers: Taking Control of Your Finances And The effect On Your Mental Health
Feeling as though you have no control over your life can have serious detrimental effects on our mental health and physical health. This is because When you don’t feel in control of your own life it can cause feelings of Worthlessness, Helplessness, Lack, and Fear.
Yes even fear comes in to play here. If you don’t have control over your life, you may fear the future, fear of what is to come, fear of how you will continue to cope and keep your head above water, fear of where the next meal is coming from, fear of not being able to give your children the life they deserve.
We start to feel worthless as we feel as though we aren’t capable to providing properly or saving or building a beautiful future for ourselves and our children.
Living with these feelings of Lack, fear and worthlessness can lead to depression and anxiety as you just don’t know how you will make it all work. More often than not these feelings also contribute to making poor decisions or making no decisions at all, which is just as bad.
We will often get ourselves in to debt and further worsen our circ*mstances, we will spend money on things we don’t need or not put together a proper plan for our money because we don’t see the point.
I mean if we have accepted that we have no control over our lives then why make an effort to plan? After all we have no control right?
Wrong!
Taking Control Of Your Finances Will Allow You To Take Back Control Of Your Life!
We Have Control, Take It Back By Creating A Fool proof Budget
It can be soooo easy to fall into the trap of feeling out of control. We have so much to do and think about as Single Mothers, that our finances just become an after thought and we just trudge along day by day hoping that our card doesn’t get declined.
This has been me many a time… so no judgment here!
There have been many points in my life when I have had no idea what money is going in and out of my bank. I would just go along tapping my card (or handing over the cash back in the day!), without a thought to what I was actually spending, or if my bills would be paid.
At other times I have had so much debt, and so many bills that I couldn’t even buy food and have had to borrow money from family and friends. But it gets to a point that taking control of your finances is the only option, or they control you!
The thing is, feeling out of control with our finances can have a major effect not only on our money, but on other aspects of our life. For instance It has also caused me to get into a very toxic relationship as I felt unworthy and as though I needed someone save me (embarrassing I know!)
Lack of proper Budgeting and Financial planning has meant that myself and my children have missed out on so many opportunities that we could have taken advantage of had I been following a budget.
We haven’t socialised at certain points of our lives because we just couldn’t afford to go any where or do anything
So Budgeting For Single Mothers is such an important thing, not only for your finances, but for so many aspects of your life.
The thing is you do have control, or at least you have the ability of taking control of your finances. And that is where creating and sticking to a budget comes in. When we create a Fool Proof budget and stick to it, we gain back that control and start living life in alignment to what how we want to live.
But before you create a budget that’s not only going to stick, but is going to uplevel you to become the best version of yourself, you need to change your mindset.
Changing Your Mindset Around Budgeting
The way in which we look at budgeting has a major impact on how we create and stick to a budget. As I have explained, our finances have such a major impact on our lives, but in return our mindset around money, abundance and our self-image play a part in how we plan our finances.
So its a bit of a circle and the only part we have control over at first is our mindset. So before you can take control of your circ*mstances you need to take control of your mindset. As I mentioned in my previous post 5 Books Guaranteed To Transform Your Money Mindset the first book I read that really stuck and created major shifts in how I looked at money was Rich Dad Poor Dad.
The thing is You often don’t even realise how much of what you say and how you think about making and saving money can have such an effect on your mindset. there are so many books out there that will do wonders for you, but Honestly, this book is a game changer Click to get the KINDLE EDITION or the PAPERBACK EDITION.
Also check out some of my other posts below, they are packed full of ways you can not only change, but elevate your mindset, which in turn will lead to you taking control of your finances to become the most Amazingly Unstoppable woman that you are!
So that’s the first step to creating a Fool Proof budget, you must change your money mindset…
Creating a Fool Proof Budget And Truly Taking Control Of Your Finances
Although, you may not have had chance to dive deep into and change your money mindset just yet, creating a Fool Proof budget really isn’t that difficult. I know, I know, it sounds boring and possibly a bit scary. And if that is the case then yes you do need to work on that money mindset!
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The way I see it, is that going through my finances and coming up with a budget should be an exciting and joyful experience. Why? You may ask.
Because when you are are creating a budget, it is more than just writing down numbers on a bit of paper or entering them into a spreadsheet. You are literally planning for, creating and taking control of your future and reaching your goals.
Budgets can change so I still go through this process a few times a year and sometime even more, depending on my goals and income.
