Remember the month, when you were barely able to make ends meet with your budget? We all agree that creating a monthly budget is necessary and helps us in many ways. However, this monthly budget may not save you from facing a month, when you would need extra money to pay your expenses. So what really puts a budget out of action?
While this may include the factors like heavy property bills, the heavy tax on water bills or some uncertain situations like poor health. With these variable expenses, sometimes, it becomes difficult to faithfully follow the budget. Hence the experts suggest that a good budget always keeps provision for these uncertain situations so that whenever any of such expense comes due, you got the money ready for them.
Still, this approach might not work for you as it would be difficult for you to take out money for uncertain or additional expenses from a monthly income, therefore; let us have a look at some other factors that might help you in making a good functional budget.
Writing down your income, expenses, and spending
The foremost step is to list down your income and expenses. This will help you in managing your money and tracking the spending behavior so that you may fulfill your goals. While it would be easy to list down the income that is expected to be received over time, it may be difficult to write down the expense, as it might require some close attention.
The track of spending may include every little item such as candy, coffee and cigarettes etc. The tracking should continue for at least a month or two as you pass every day at home, at play or at work.
Set appropriate saving goals
Considering what you want in your life, what dreams you want to achieve, you may like to set some short-term, medium-term or the long-term goals. The short-term goals may include saving up for some tour. A Medium term may include saving up for a car and the long term may include saving up for your retirement or your child’s education.
It is important to decide these goals with a realistic approach and once done, it’s time to figure out ways to attain them within the framework of our income and expenses. Since goals keep changing, you may also need to revise or re-evaluate your budgeting.
Make a saving plan
A habit of creating a budget itself opens up many options to make a proper saving plan. Since budgeting gives you a clear idea of personal spending, you may know always where you need to spend and where to save. However, if you are short on savings, your priority should be to start an emergency fund so that in the case of uncertain circumstances, your budgeting may not get disrupted.
By following the steps discussed above you may create a good budget for a month that would not only help you in saving some amount but would also help in dealing with uncertain realities.
