Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:09 pm Post subject: Need some help on budgeting!!
I need some help on budgeting. I am 32 years of age, and I am married and I have 3 kids. I live in my mom’s house. I have a stable salary and till now I have been able to meet my bills at right time. The problem is that I am not able to stick to any kind of budget. I have tried lot of different things like sticking to a payment schedule. But due to some or the other reason it just doesn’t work out for me. And therefore at the end of the month I am just not able to spend even a penny extra.
I would be grateful to you if you could please help me on this.
James _________________ Need help choosing the right loan? Get free consultation from community lenders/consultant
Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject: RE:
Hi James,
Welcome to the forums.
I can understand your problem. The first step that needs to be taken for financial stability is to locate where the problem lies. And I think you already know that.
Now what you need to do is try to have a complete picture of where your money goes. You should simply get a receipt of every purchase that you make and keep a record of it. Do it for at least one month before planning a budget. Because you will not be able to prepare a budget before you are able to track your spending habits.
Once you have tracked down all your spending habits then you can begin to formulate a budget. It may seem weird and difficult in the beginning. But you need to remain focused till the end so that you can attain financial stability. You can also download our free budgeting tool to help you out when you start budgeting.
What you have said, it's a common problem for all of us. I just try to give some steps that I used to follow while budgeting.
What you can do:
Take a piece of paper and list all the expense head on it first. Like Food, Traveling Cost, House Rent etc. A head named "Saving" should be there.
Now, try to assign the budget for each head. But, one thing you just keep in mind that the total budget for all the heads should be equal to your income.
Now, try to list out the sub-head expense under each category. And try the divide the budget amount of that category to its sub-head.
This way, you will get an approximate budget for particular item for the particular month.
Now, while spending money on particular item try to keep yourself in under budget.
Note all the daily expenses item-wise in the paper.
At the end of month, compare your expenses with the budget amount for each item for that particular month. This way you can judge on which item you are in budget and on which not. For the items, you have crossed the budget try to estimate the actual budget in next month.
Then, start making budget for the next month keeping all the expenses for last month.
I fully agree with Jerry that you can use that budgeting tool. That tool is based on the steps mentioned above only. I also learn budgeting from there only. It's a really very nice tool.
jerry
