Are you trying to set yourself up on a budget so that your financial life is easier for you to manage? Do you want to know where your money needs to go each month so that you can plan correctly and take care of all your expenses? There are a few different theories when it comes to how to write a budget, but there is only one way to make sure you are not surprised by expenses you do not think about. Here is the correct way to write your budget.
You need to start with all of your expenses. This means you need to get a list of everything from your utility bills, mortgage or rent, car payment, insurance, to your license fees, car registration, oil changes, Christmas spending, birthday spending, and everything else in between. Anything that you spend money on in a years time needs to be included in your budget. If you forget about the quarterly or annual expenses you will be surprised by them and it will throw your budget off.
Next, you need to weigh your expenses against your income. Break any expenses that are not monthly down into monthly expenses to make it easier to work with. Then, you need to add them all up and subtract them from your income. The amount you have left is what you are allowed for savings, entertainment, and other things that are not necessities for your survival.
If you are not happy with the amount that is left over, then it is time to look at your expenses closely and figure out what you can live without. You might have cable television just so you can watch one show a week. Maybe that show is offered on the internet for free. Maybe you barely ever watch your television and that is an expense you can throw out. There are many other needless expenses that are usually in our budgets. Take a close look and eliminate anything that is not necessary for you.
Last, you need to figure out how much you are willing to waste on entertainment each month. This is your nights out, your movie rentals, and other things we do for enjoyment. There are many ways to make cuts here and still have a great time. You also need to figure out how much to save for general savings, vacations, emergencies, and other things you might be saving money for. This is how to write a budget the correct way and make sure you do not leave anything out.
When most people hear about creating a monthly budget they run the other way in fear. They just don’t know where to start. It certainly wasn’t something that most of us where taught in school. However, it would have been more useful than some history lessons.
Creating a monthly budget is really quite simply when you use the right worksheets. However, it does require a consistent effort on your part to both create and to live within your budget.
Follow the how-to directions below to start creating your monthly budget today.
First, track your spending and expenses for the next 30 days. You can begin by recording all your purchases on a weekly expense report worksheet that you fill out each day. Save your receipts from each purchase and then record a description of the purchase, the amount, its category, and how you made the purchase; whether by cash, check, or credit card.
At the end of the week, transfer all your purchases to your monthly expense record worksheet. On this worksheet, you will have a comprehensive view of all expenses for the month and how much you spent in each category such as food, household, and medical just to name a few. You will also record your monthly expenses such as utilities, car payment, credit card payments, and investments.
After you have track your spending for a month, you now have the information you need to create a monthly budget. Now you know exactly how and what you spend your money on. If you did not have a surplus of money at the end of the month, you can now see area where you can trim your spending in order to operate you budget with a surplus next month.
Next, you will want to fill out a monthly financial report worksheet where you record you income and come up with your net spendable income after taxes and any charitable giving. Then you want to take your totals from your monthly expense record worksheet and fill in all amounts in the categories such as household, food, medical, transportation, and recreation just to name a few. When you total up your expenses and subtract them from you net spendable income you will see if you have a surplus or not.
Finally, take the information you have learned and create a budget for next month using a monthly budget worksheet. On this worksheet, you will fill in your income along with your fixed expenses, fixed variables, occasional expenses, and installments such as credit card payments. After you total up your income and all expenses you will be able to see if you have an excess at the end of the month or if you are short. If you are short, now is the time to cut back on some occasional expenses as well as some fixed variable expenses in order to operate a working monthly budget.
Budgeting is important to your family’s financial health. Those with strong budgets tend to have their lives in much better order financially. Slowly, no matter what kind of income you have, you’ll see your net worth increase as you stick to your plan.
But what if your plan is weak?
Following is 10 steps to help improve your budget:
1. Use Microsoft Excel- Don’t waste your money on expensive budgeting programs. You can have a budget that is just as effective using some type of spreadsheet (Excel or Google Spreadsheets work fine). Simply learning a few formulas online, you can create a fully-customizable budget that adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides any figures you need.
2. Determine Your Net Income- Doing a budget off a gross income makes it more difficult to compute. Taxes will be taken out of your check each time and that money may never be realized until you get your tax return back for the year. Be sure to calculate off a net figure; in other words, how much do you bring home monthly/weekly AFTER tax? You’ll have a better grip on what money you actually have to work with each month this way.
3. Determine Your Fixed Costs- What sort of expenses can you expect each month that don’t change? These are fixed costs, and you should have a category for them so you can see what are solidified expenses that can’t be avoided. Typically, your fixed cost line doesn’t have any wiggle-room. It could be a car payment, home mortgage, or insurance expense; these don’t change month to month.
4. Know Your Variable Costs- A variable cost is one that tends to do just that- vary. This could be your grocery bill, entertainment fund, misc. fund, gift fund, etc… From month to month, these tend to be a bit more flexible; if you know you’re going to be tight for money one month, look to you list of variable costs to cut where you can.
5. Every Dollar Needs a Spot- Make sure that every dollar has a place to go. There shouldn’t be any money at the end of the month that doesn’t have a job. Categorize where all of your money will go. If you fail to do this, you’ll end up spending what extra money could be saved!
6. Set Goals- If you have no end goal, you’ll fail with a budget! Is there a new home you’d like to get your hands on in the next 2 or 3 years? Maybe it’s the car you’ve been dreaming about since you were young. Whatever the case may be, have a goal and let that be your motivation to stick to that budget. If not, you will fail!
7. Save Your Receipts- If you don’t save every receipt, you’ll find that remembering all of your expenses will be tough! After making a purchase, make sure that you not only get a receipt but have a ready spot to put it. That way, at the end of the night when you’re updating your budget, you won’t let any expense fall through the cracks.
8. Update Your Budget Daily- This one is a must! Make sure you don’t wait until the end of the month to track all of your money’s goings and comings. You’ll find that your results will be inaccurate; and if that’s the case, what’s the point of your budget?!
9. Evaluate Each Month- If you’ll take a good solid 30 minutes at the end of the month to go over what happened with your money, you’ll have the statistics to help you see strengths and weaknesses; those numbers promote change. Otherwise, you might find that you’ve spent a lot and you know you need to change, but you won’t be able to identify those areas that need it most.
10. Have A Leisure Fund; Have Some Fun- You’re budget should create a little room to have a little fun! Budgets tend to have a bad reputation because they are often too restrictive. Allow you and your spouse to have a little fun with that hard earned money! Lay aside x-amount of dollars for a “leisure fund” each month to help keep your sanity. After all, you have to have a little fun with your money, right?!
Making a household budget may seem like a chore. An unreasonable and unnecessary addition to your already long list of duties. But the benefits of making a household budget greatly outweigh any disadvantages of having to do so. Here is why.
Have you ever received a letter from the bank telling you that your account is overdrawn? The charges incurred from the overdraft can be amazing. Most banks charge on average $35 for each item that is overdrawn. Making a household budget can save you lots of money in overdraft charges.
For example, if have gone over and you have five checks that come through you will be charged $35 times five which equals $175. Ouch!! Now most times the reason you go over is because you had more money going out than you did coming in and that $175 is going to cause even more problems.
This is the main reason why making a household budget is needed. A budget will help you to have a better understanding of your money. It will show you where it goes and it will help you to eliminate the overdraft fees and headaches.
Making a household budget doesn’t have to be difficult. I recommend you start out with one month. When you try to do more than that, you will build stress and you don’t need that.
Start out by collecting all of your monthly bills and your check book. You will need several pieces of paper and a pencil. Blank paper with no lines would work better, but any type of paper will work.
Write out all of your monthly bills, amount due, and due date. Here are some examples of monthly bills that are important when making a household budget:
Mortgage
Electric
Water
Insurance
Gasoline
Credit card
Groceries
Internet
Phone
Car payment
Once you have the monthly bills, amounts, and due dates you are ready to add the miscellaneous items. These items include the following.
Clothing
Vehicle Repair
Movie rentals
Entertainment
These things are ones that you could remove or do without if you had to, due to the money going to something else. These could also be one time items like registration fees for a sport or a birthday gift. You are almost down making your household budget.
Now you need to add all of these items up and add them to a different piece of paper. Add your income to the sheet as well. Now subtract your income from the amount of your bills. If you are in the black you are off to a great start, but if you are in the red, you need to reevaluate what you are spending your money on each month. You don’t want to live pay check to pay check and spend every last dime. You will want to have a cushion in your checking account just in case something happens.
Part of making a household budget is writing down the dollar amounts and what it was for, for every purchase you make. You need to do this with every purchase because you want to know where your money is going. You may have more than enough funds to cover your monthly bills but still have nothing in your account or over draw it. When you write down all of your purchases you will be able to figure out where the problem areas are and you will be able to fix them.
Making a household budget will help you to have more money each month and it will help you save for the future. Its also a great way to show you children show your children responsibility. Be sure to include them when making your household budget so that they will learn how to do it with their own money as well.