spending plan

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A written or mental guide that decides in advance how much money you will spend on each thing.

   Grammar: Countable: make a spending plan, follow a spending plan, or talk about spending plans in general.

   Patterns

   • make a spending plan
   • follow a spending plan
   • a spending plan for something
   • stick to a spending plan

   Before the trip, we made a spending plan so we would not run out of money.

   Her spending plan puts a fixed amount aside for rent, food, and savings.

   If you follow a simple spending plan, you can see exactly where your salary goes each month.

2. 2nouncountablebusinessfinance

   A way of organizing regular payments and purchases, often used in personal finance advice.

   Grammar: Countable and often used with 'a' when describing one person's or family's system.

   Patterns

   • a monthly spending plan
   • a household spending plan
   • put together a spending plan

   The bank helped them put together a monthly spending plan after their loan.

   A household spending plan should include bills, groceries, transport, and small treats.

Word forms

Common combinations

make a spending plan

Let's make a spending plan before the new school year starts.

monthly spending plan

Their monthly spending plan leaves about $200 for fun.

stick to a spending plan

It is hard to stick to a spending plan when prices keep rising.

a spending plan for the week

She wrote a spending plan for the week on the back of an envelope.

household spending plan

A household spending plan works best when everyone agrees on the limits.

Synonyms and how they differ

budget

Budget is the more common and slightly more formal word for the same idea, and it can also be a verb ('to budget').

financial plan

Financial plan is broader and usually covers saving and investing, not just day-to-day spending.

allowance

Allowance usually means a fixed amount given regularly to one person, not a full plan for all spending.

Word family

spend verb

To use money to buy things.

spender noun

A person who spends money, often in a particular way, as in 'a big spender'.

spending noun

The act or total amount of money spent.

Commonly confused: spending plan or budget?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “spending plan”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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