How To Make Money As A 10 Year Old

Now you've done all the main pain-free savings, your new expected monthly outgoings should be significantly lower. What to do next depends on you.

Were you already spending within your means?

If so, you should now have more money to spend, save or repay debts. However, remember things change, so you need to keep on top of your finances. Today's best deal isn't necessarily going to be tomorrow's.

Ensure you get the free weekly MoneySaving email, which includes any changes and new top deals to help you save even more.

Yet even though you're now spending within your means; you may still be in debt or wanting to quickly save for something specific. In that case, some of the techniques in Step 4: Painful savings may still be useful.

Were you spending more than you earned before?

I now need to know if you've brought your spending under control. This again means calculating an accurate answer based on your new expenditure levels. If you did the budget planner earlier, all you need to do is change the values for areas where you've made savings. If not, then it's time to start the budget planner process.

You may consider this to be a bit unnecessary, after all you've done the savings, so do you really need an accurate answer? My response is an unrelenting yes, and as I explain in many other places on the site, the reason is because of what's called a "debt spiral"; one of the nastiest, most unrelenting, life-destroying, financial problems you can have.

You may feel this is over-dramatic. Yet when there's no money left, you can't borrow more, and the creditors are asking for money back which you've no ability to repay, it touches every element of your life. The danger is what's called a 'debt spiral'. It works like this:

A debt spiral is: spending more than you earn, borrowing to fill the gap, more of your income goes to repaying the debts, so you borrow even more to maintain your lifestyle. Finally all of your income goes towards paying off debt, meaning you've got none of your income left

All this means I need to know whether you still spend more than you earn, which means filling in the budget planner. If it says you're now spending within your means... hoorah! Though you may still be in debt or wanting to save for something specific, so you may still find some of the painful savings below useful.

Alternatively, you may consider the job is done. Yet even in that case, remember things change, you need to keep on top of your finances. Today's best deal isn't necessarily tomorrow's.

Yet if you're still spending more than you earn, there is no option – you need to rein in your expenditure, so keep reading.