Budgeting money is easy, if you have a basic process to follow. By following a few simple steps, you can put one foot in front of the other and create a workable budget very quickly. Follow the steps below to create a basic budget to build on:
1. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish by creating a budget. Maybe you want to save money for a down payment on a house. Maybe you’re tired of paying a large portion of your paycheck towards credit card bills and want to get rid of them. Or, maybe you’re having trouble paying all your bills on time and you want to change that for the better. A budget is nothing more than a plan for how you want to spend your money. So, deciding what’s important for you will determine what your budget will be focused on. Get out a piece of paper and a pencil and write down in a single, positive sentence, what you most want to achieve with your budget.
2. On the same piece of paper that you wrote your budget goal on, list how much money you receive as income on a monthly basis. If you can get this exact, great. If not, estimate. This doesn’t have to be exact. For example, if you’re paid every other week, just list double the amount of your typical paycheck and mark it with an asterisk (if you get paid every other week, two months a year you get an extra paycheck. But, if this is your scenario, don’t worry about the extra paychecks – they’re gravy – move on.)
3. Now, list your expenses: Mortgage/rent, utilities, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, credit card bills, etc. Include any items that will help you achieve your ultimate budgetary goal. A fast way to help you remember everything is to logon to your online checking account and review the past 60 days of activity. Don’t burn hours of your time worrying about getting everything perfect the first time out – no one is going to grade your work. Your first goal should be to get a roughly accurate ballpark estimate of where you’re at.
4. Do a little analysis. The odds are good that if you’ve followed the first three steps as described, you’ll actually have a little bit of leftover money showing when you subtract all your expenses from your income. If you’re scratching your head at this because you’re usually running behind every month, here is the aha moment you’ve been waiting for: coming up short means either an unexpected expense has run you awry and/or you have many small expenses that you underestimate on a daily basis that quickly add up to real (budget busting) money. Four dollar latte’s in the morning, magazines, happy hours, eating out one too many times and 500 channels on your television (10 of which you watch regularly) all contribute to this. Which leads us to step number five…
5. Weed out the unnecessary expense. If you think this is poverty consciousness, think again. Even rich people – especially rich people – don’t waste their money on things they truly don’t value. You can make finer coffee at home for much lesser expense, get your tabloid needs more than met on the Internet, have sinful barbeques and happy hours at home with your friends and family for a fraction of the price of going out and survive on less than the extreme deluxe satellite television package, all while having more fun for less money than you thought possible.
6. Keep your mind focused on a budget that leaves you with money left over at the end of the month. Repeat steps 2-5. That’s it. Keep refining the accuracy of listing your income and expenses, and keep weeding out the unnecessary expenses in your life. An extra-credit thing you can do to help you with your budget is to put as many fixed bills on auto-pilot as possible (auto-draft or automatic online bill pay) and withdraw a set amount of cash periodically to cover the miscellaneous expenses. That way, you won’t have handwritten checks, excessive debits or ATM withdrawals goofing up your budget.
Follow the above simple process for creating a budget that will meet your needs, making your life and your family’s life the best it can be.