
A real-life story
My name is Olena, I am 42 years old and I came to Poland in October 2022 from Ukraine. Living in a new country brought many challenges, and one of the biggest was organizing my finances. I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands, so seven months ago I started running a household budget.
The beginnings were not easy. I had to get used to systematically collecting receipts and recording every expense in a spreadsheet. It took a lot of self-discipline and commitment, but over time I developed my own system that I was comfortable with. Income, being fixed, I enter once a month, while I complete my expenses once or twice a week.
I have divided them into a number of categories that help me monitor where my money is going: groceries, fixed fees, health, home maintenance, education, transport, clothing, pleasure and unplanned expenses.
Keeping a budget opened my eyes. I realised that it was the unplanned purchases and impulsive spending that was the main reason for the instability of my finances. I was buying things I didn’t really need and which only made me feel better for a while.

Now that I have everything under control, I don’t feel restricted at all. On the contrary, I have gained a sense of peace of mind and an awareness of how much I can spend. I know that I can afford to indulge myself too, but I do so in a considered way. This makes me feel more confident and secure