In a time of economic and financial uncertainty, it's especially important to be careful with your money. Although money and personal finances can be touchy subjects, they're important to address. If you're not secure in your finances today, then if something happens tomorrow it could be difficult to recover.
Today, millions of people are drowning in credit card debt and loans and struggling to pay them back. If you budget your personal finances, you can easily see what money is coming in, where it's going and how to make best use of what remains.
Get organised
When you have a working personal finance plan in place, you can really begin to understand money management. You'll see what money you have coming in and then see what you do with it every week or month. Once you start analysing your money then you can quickly see where you're spending more money than you need to.
Once you have these things in place then you're in a position to start thinking about how to pay off those credit card bills or start saving for those little surprises.
How Does It Work?
With a budget planner, you can total up what you earn, for many this may be your monthly salary, for others this may include benefits like child support and tax credits.
Then, you total up all the bills you pay each month such as:
- Rent or mortgage
- Insurance
- Car payment
- Mobile phone payments
- Loans
- Groceries
- Clothing
- Cash taken out from a cash point
- Travel to work costs
When you add up all of these expenses, you have the amount you spend every month. Hopefully, the amount you're spending is less than what you're bringing in.
Practical Applications
If you're regularly spending more money than you have then you need to cut something out. This often means you need to cut-up the credit cards and pay them off. It might mean spending less on clothes, eat out less often or change where you do your grocery shopping.
If you have extra money, save it. This can go toward a house, car, retirement or other future purchase. Your own little nest egg or for a rainy day
But before you can do anything, you have to set your budget and stick to it.
How To Do It
Money Dashboard is a free budget planner that makes use of auto-tagging transactions to help you build up a budget, and track how it compares to your monthly spending. You can set up custom alerts and messages to help you stick to the budget.
