Save 100% Of Your Secondary Income Streams To Budget Better

We’ve talked frequently about how to make make money in your spare time. What should you do with that extra money? Try saving every last dollar.

Budget picture from Shutterstock

As finance blog The Simple Dollar suggests, living on one income and saving every dollar you get from other sources can not only boost your savings, but it can help keep your budget disciplined. Relying on just one stream can also give that source a bit more breathing room and reduce stress:

Banking one income in its entirety makes budgeting simpler. We simply budget all of our family’s expenses out of one salary, knowing that the other one is going straight in the bank.

Thus, our functional budget doesn’t really include any savings. It focuses instead on things like food, household supplies, automotive expenses, property taxes, educational expenses, family entertainment, and so on. Since one salary is pretty much going straight in the bank, we don’t worry about it when figuring out where our money goes.

The real key, realistically, is to adjust your lifestyle to fit inside one income stream, but even if you’re already trying to fit all of your living expenses into one income, you can still follow this advice. If you get a bonus, a tax return, or just extra money on the side, send it straight to savings.

Some Thoughts on Living on One Income [The Simple Dollar]