It’s not always easy for families to find spare money to save for a family holiday! As a family, we spent years booking the holiday WE wanted and struggling to save what we needed before the balance was due (the luxury of low or nil deposits). We realised that we were doing it all wrong and like so many families across the world right now, there is a lot of job uncertainty and looking at more lockdowns into 2021. It seems the world has got used to this NEW normal as Forbes even discussed where brits may still holiday despite new quarantine rules. Now more than ever, we should be looking to save money where we can and budget for our family holidays.
There are many websites, blogs and vlogs who offer advice to raise cash! Sell things on eBay, don’t have your nails done, cancel that Netflix subscription you watch once a month. There are many more examples, and I am always looking at ways to bring in some extra pounds, just last week I saved £60 a month by changing my TV package and even more by shopping more in Lidl and Aldi but without a proper budget in place, we don’t know what money we have left. So I turned to Pigly with the help of their calculators.
Who is Pigly?
Pigly is an online website, offering financial assistance by providing free to use budgeting calculators. There would be no more need for outdated Excel spreadsheets with the help of Pigly, who have been vetted and reviewed by leading financial experts.
They understand that US, that’s you and I don’t want to register, supply our emails to receive random newsletters every week that end up in the junk folder! They know that we want an easy to use system, with no fuss and the best thing, no annoying pop-ups or advertising flowing across the screen.
Personal Budget Planner
Who doesn’t love a good planner and what better than one that helps you budget? I don’t know about you, but budgeting has never come naturally to me! It takes one miscalculation, and it’s beans on toast for a couple of days until payday! So with the help of Pigly, we sat down and looked at our budget from every angle. We particularly liked that you can adjust any of the initial set percentages to suit your needs & budget.
Pigly’s tips on how to get the most out of your budget helped to understand why we have no emergency fund and struggle to consider future finances. After using the budgeting calculator, we were more in tune with what we tend to overspend on; it gave us more of an understanding of where we can save money.
Saving for a Holiday
Like most families, our annual holiday is important to us. It’s our break from the norm (hate that word) but we strive to spend seven days together as a family doing things not involving technology so I check out the tips on Pigly’s website about savings accounts and opened up an account just for holidays, we can pay a small amount in either weekly or monthly and we get a bonus if we don’t withdraw.
It’s not always easy to offer our children the lives we think they should have, growing up I didn’t have a family holiday until I was ten, but my husband had a holiday every year, so it’s crucial to the both of us that we at least get a cheap weekend by the sea, but we also understand that the world is just a little bit different right now, who knows if next year we will see more holiday snaps hitting those Instagram feeds?
Whether you are saving for a house, a car or a holiday. According to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, now is the time to start saving, offering some excellent advice for starting small and thinking about that end goal. We all need end goals; we save much better if we have a total in mind and an end date. Are you good at saving? Or do you think you would benefit from some budgeting? Let me know in the comments!