A budget is a plan for your money.

Budgeting helps you stay in control of your finances, avoid unnecessary debt, make the most of surplus, and reach your financial goals.

Perhaps you want to:

• simply ensure your income covers your expenditure;
• save for a holiday or major purchase;
• put money aside for a rainy day.

Creating a budget makes it much easier to see the full picture of:

• the money you have coming in every month;
• how much of this goes to essential spending (such as rent/mortgage, electricity, food etc) and how much is available to cover other expenditure;
• where savings can be made, for example by shopping around for better deals, or cancelling subscriptions.