Some people love to complicate things. They love to analyse, dissect and look at every little detail. They enjoy the graphs, forecasts and involved articles that often appear in the financial press. If you are one of those people you will enjoy the graphs and spreadsheets and formulas, but most of us are not like that. In fact, these are the very things that put many people off doing their own budget planning – it all seems so complicated. Actually, the opposite is true – budgeting money is simple. Maybe it is not so easy to put into practice but the process is simple. All you need is a sheet of paper and a pen.
Make a list of your regular expenses
Start with your basic living costs – these are the things you absolutely must pay to survive in this world. The list should include:
- Rent or mortgage payments
- Power bills – electricity, gas, heating oil
- Food bills
- Clothing
- Cost of getting to work – public transport
- Motor vehicle costs – you may need your car to get to work
- Any other regular payments such as medical insurance, loans
By making a list you will find out how much it costs you to live. You may think you already know, but very few people sit down to look at their costs in detail without getting a surprise and it is not always a pleasant one. In fact, this could be a reason you may not want to do the exercise – because you fear the truth. But this is why you have to do it if you want to be free of financial worries and to build your finances. In this case, the truth will really set you free.
The Rewards Are Great
The benefits of budget planning are real: the feeling of knowing where you are spending your money; the feeling of taking control; the feeling you are actually, finally doing something constructive about your finances. The rewards keep coming – in the form of being able to identify surplus money so you can start building your wealth or, just as important, being able to understand why you do not have any surplus money to invest.
You will soon start to question certain spending habits and to put a value on them in a new context – the context of gaining financial security and building you wealth.
If you have avoided spending time on your finances because it all seemed to hard, you really don’t have much of an excuse. With some simple tools and a little work, you can start to shape your financial future. This is what budget planning is all about.