The Average American Owes $8,329 in Credit Card Debt – How to Budget Your Way to Freedom
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There’s not many folks who would be really excited to say that they were sitting home on a Friday night to make a budget, in truth making a budget is probably one of the most important things you can do for your future. However, knowing how to budget isn’t something that everyone knows how to do as soon as they graduate from high school. Learning how to make a budget that can really help you manage the money and assets that you have is something that takes a little bit of patience and dedication, but the results are definitely worth it.
Getting organized is the very first requirement to creating an effective budget. When you’re ready to get started making your budget, take a little trip to the local office supply store and grab an accordion folder with at least ten different slots. If you have a filing cabinet already, great! Clear yourself a drawer out for all your budgeting. If you have some pens and pencils handy you’re going to need them as you create labels for your filing cabinet or accordion folder.
Now that you’re organized you’re ready for a fact finding mission. If this is your first effort at making a budget its going to take some time to gather all your electronic and paper statements or balances. Aside from your bank statements, you will want to dig out copies of your loan payments, cable bill, water and sewer bill, rent, and your paycheck stubs. All of this data will make keeping track of what you’re spending and earning easier.
The real tedious part is out of the way after you’ve gathered all your financial information together. You can now start budgeting. Get some ruled paper or even better, open up a new spreadsheet on your computer. Start one column that represents of all the income you earn in a month, and start another column that will represent all the money that you spend during the month. Next, go through each line item and assign it a category. For example your car insurance, oil change, and gas may go to a category named “auto” while your trip to Walmart may go under “groceries”. Once you’ve listed and categorized each line item, sum each category up and take a look at the results. Are you spending more than you earn? Are you able to save money each month? Are you spending more on groceries than you thought?
Now let me show you the real power of learning how to budget. Set spending goals for each of the categories that you listed and try and stay within that limit. As you spend money, organize your receipts or write notes and place them in your accordion folder. Somewhere around the middle of the month sum everything up by category and see where you’re at. Does it look like you’re going to be within your original goal? Are you going to be over? You can then make adjustments in your spending. This is probably a lot to take in if you’ve never kept a budget before, however it can be the difference between taking a vacation this year or not. When you learn how to save money using the techniques I’ve shown, you enable yourself to do things that may have not seemed possible before.
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