Like a lot of families, the pandemic and resulting lockdown impacted our personal finances. I had to completely stop working in March when the UK lockdown began because of the nature of my job. Lockdown has financially impacted a lot of people. Whether that be reduced work/customers or being furloughed. For example, the BBC reported that there was 2.3 million furlough claims made during May. Consequently, all of those people were receiving a reduced wage.
One in five people believe they will be unable to recover financially this year from the impact of Covid-19, according to a new survey by Open Up 2020. So now more than ever it is important to review finances and create sensible budgets.
Therefore, we decided to sit down and look at our finances and see if we could improve our budgeting. We used the Pigly website to do this.
About Pigly
Pigly is an online website which offers a range of financial and budgeting calculators. Most importantly, all of the calculators are reviewed by experts to ensure reliability and accuracy. They provide advice and help with:
- Savings
- Mortgages
- Credit cards
- Vehicles
- Loans
- Debts
- Businesses
All of their resources are completely free to use, with no registration required. In addition to this it is also completely free of annoying ads!
The Budgeting Calculator
Source: www.pigly.com
The main tool we used on the Pigly website was their Personal Budget Planner. It is really user friendly and straightforward. You can input your weekly, monthly or yearly salary and it will provide a complete budget for you. It recommends percentage amounts to allocate to different outgoings. Such as food, housing, utilities and clothing. The suggested percentages are only guide and you can amend them to suit you and your lifestyle.
What I like about the planner is that you can set a range. For example you can budget to spend between 5-10% of your earnings on food. This gives you some leeway, as you have a low end and high end budget. I feel like this range makes it feel less rigid and therefore more achievable.
By using the budgeting calculator we will able to set realistic goals for ourselves, and easily highlight areas where we were overspending. We noticed we were spending a considerable amount on utilities and food, so we looked into ways we could reduce these. As a result we were able to save more money.
The Importance of Saving
Source: www.pigly.com
If there is one thing the pandemic has taught us, it is that anything can happen at any time! It has really made us value the savings we had, they helped to keep us above water during this difficult time. Pigly provides information on the importance of saving and budgeting. They explains how it can help reduce financial stress.
So this also got me thinking about how, as a mum, I can teach Zac the importance of good money management. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has some great resources for parents and kids, to help teach these invaluable life skills. They have activities suitable for everyone, from preschoolers to teenagers and young adults.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you found this post useful!
