Online Shopping Guide

Gain Control of Your Money With a Personal Budget

Even though we tend to plan most of our activities- from vacations to daily events, we’re not so inclined to plan on how we are going to spend our money. A money plan is essentially a budget. The budget specifies how much we are going to spend and save, and differentiates between our needs and our desires.

The first task to gain control of day-to-day spending is to keep a journal of all expenditures for one month. Don’t change how you normally spend your money, simply keep track of where it goes for one month. After one month, evaluate your journal. Differentiate between essentials and non-essentials, perhaps with a highlighter. This is where the difference-making begins: identify non-essential expenses that you could decrease. Often, simple awareness of where your money is really going is all you need for motivation to gain back control. Hopefully, you will see and increase in cash flow by eliminating small non-essentials and creating new budgets, as needed, to obtain your overall goals. Be realistic. If a budget is too demanding or limiting, then it will be nearly impossible to live by and quickly becomes a burden. Allow little allowances of the things you enjoy. Also, view your budget as a work-in-progress, for several months so as to avoid the uncomfortable strain of a sudden lifestyle change. You want YOUR budget to work for you over the long term.

In order to establish a baseline budget to use during months two and three, identify which areas you can cut expenses.

1. It is necessary to look into the monthly expenditures that are not necessities. This can be broken down to average expenditure for one week. Less money than spent the previous month, should be taken out – in weekly allotments. This type of personal budgeting can be used for non-necessary expenditures for the next month. If the money is spent before the week ends, the remaining extra expenditures can be cut.

2. Review how often you dine out at restaurants each week. In the first month you may eat out, but less often. Choose the days that you eat out based on what is easiest for you. Then don’t eat out more often than that.

3. Head straight for the clearance racks when you are shopping. Then check out the sales racks. Only buy things that are on sale. Periodically check out the clearance areas of your favorite stores. Accumulate your wardrobe one piece at a time, buying items at a discount

4. Taking the time to shop around for the best rates and looking for potential switching bonuses can save you money when getting a new credit card or changing one of the following services: satellite/cable, telephone, and garbage pickup.

5. Avoid getting cash from ATM machines other than those of your own bank to save yourself additional fees.

6. Make a list before shopping. Buy only what is on the list. Tell yourself you can return to the store if you forgot something that you left off the list. You probably won’t need to return to the store until the next trip. You will save more money by avoiding the store which prevents impulse buying. If you want to succeed at saving money avoid going back to the store if at all possible.

Overall, remember reduce stress by starting with a snap shot of where you are spending money now, make a budget in increments, allow yourself a few luxuries as you go, don’t be too hard on yourself. You want the budget to work over the long term. Create successes for yourself in the beginning, reevaluate over a period of several months, and a new lifestyle will emerge where you will be more in control of your spending and have less wasteful spending that will generate more cash flow for you as well.

Phil Rogers is a recovering Credit addict going on 15 years of living debt free. He now spends his spare time paying forward his knowledge to those who need help with debt reduction, creating a personal budget, and Planning

Gain Control of Your Money With a Personal Budget / Author: Phil Rogers