Someone asked me recently how to cope with rising living costs caused by inflation.

My best way to deal with it is to have a budget plan for now and review it for when your expenditure changes. An example is going for a cheaper version of that particular food product either by going to a cheaper supermarket or going for the bottom shelf where they usually keep cheaper versions of similar products.

Budgeting is very important to us, after all, we work for either a Company and various other organizations that have monthly quarterly or annual budgets based on revenue, even Countries do it. So as individuals, families or groups why can't we do the same?

Being from the London UK. I sometimes spend part of the year in a cheaper country based on my income forecasts. This is because decided to start working freelance. I know this is not for everyone. But it was an idea I came up with to balance my income sometimes.

it is always good to keep up to date with current living standards and this brings me to Direct Debits it’s easy to let our direct debit just carry on as we left it. Especially for utilities and mobile phones and from my experience one could become lazy at monitoring the amounts going out.

This is a big mistake as we need to constantly keep on top of things. I recently changed my direct debits to standing orders so that a fixed amount goes out. Rather than what a company wants to take out using some excuse like usage costs or some other excuse that they may come up with, which is difficult to find out sometimes, especially for someone like myself who travels a lot and finding out through the phone sometimes can create an additional cost.