The monthly budget is the starting point for the organization of personal or family money. It will help you make money reach you and also achieve financial goals. Use our tool and follow these tips.
- Budget on real income. If you work in a dependency relationship, your income is liquid, having already made discounts and deductions. If you earn by commission, it is the average of the last six months. If you receive property rent, alimony, etc., they must be constant every month.
- Include savings as an expense. Saving is not what is left over but what is saved , so it should be part of the budget like any expense. This way you make sure to separate it every month and you can project it in time. It can be 10% of income or a fixed amount that you determine. Keep it in a savings account so you don’t spend it.
- Take ant spending into account. Part of the budget should be the small daily expenses that are a source of leakage . If you buy a $ 1 treat every day, you spend $ 30 in a month and $ 365 in a year. Including it in the budget will also help you to turn it into a source of savings , since they are generally not things of first necessity.
- Divide your food expenses. Eating is a basic necessity, but eating out all the time is not. Separate the shopping budget to prepare at home and the restaurant budget. If a meal out costs you $ 20 and you go out once a week, you will spend $ 80. With that money you could buy groceries for practically the whole month.
- Determine flexible expenses. It is not possible to spend exactly the same on groceries or gasoline, for example. For your monthly budget, average three months or find the highest expense. This second strategy will help you save. For example, if you live on the coast and use air conditioning, in the warmer months you will spend less on electricity and you will be able to allocate that money to a financial goal.
- Plan for eventual expenses . Birthdays, vacations, Christmas, end of the year, back to school, vehicle registration, among others, are expenses that do not occur every month. Add the values, divide by twelve and the result will be the amount of eventual expenses in your budget. If you save every month, you can cover them when the time comes.
- Do not neglect the unforeseen. Budgeting to the last penny is not possible because an unexpected expense always appears. Leave a space of “air” in your budget for those cases or allocate a percentage of the savings to cover them.
- Do not forget the balances of the cards. If you pay only the minimum every month, set a goal of paying all the debt to have financial relief and regain your quota. Establish an amount greater than the minimum as a fixed budget expense, using, for example, the ant expense that you save. If the minimum is $ 20, with the $ 30 you can pay $ 50. It will be a temporary expense that, once the debt is paid, you can use it for another goal.
- Include debts. The payment of installments is a fixed monthly expense for term debts such as car, housing, etc. Putting them in your budget will help you make additional payments using, for example, money saved from food in restaurants. Or advance payments if you allocate a percentage of your savings.
- Check your budget. Expenses are not set in stone. You can implement saving measures for basic services, which will lower your monthly payments. Or you can add a necessary new expense, like insurance for yourself and your assets. Check it every three months to adjust it and continue to be a useful tool for organizing and planning.
