The economy is poor. People are out of work. Many live on their retirement funds and others collect Unemployment. Costs are rising while income is the lowest it has ever been. Budgeting your money to become financially secure is important. Carefully selecting the foods you eat, the clothes you buy, or out of pocket entertainment, will help you learn how to get around the high cost of living. It is not easy, but by setting up a budget and watching how you spend your money, you can become financially secure.
1. Take a large yellow pad. Write down all your expenses for the month. Be sure to include everything you spend money on. Include your morning coffee at Mac Donalds, or a piece of candy you bought on impulse. Do not omit anything even if you feel it was just a few cents. Pennies add up so be sure to include it in your expenditures when creating your budget so you can become financially secure.
2. Make a separate list of all your set bills. These would include every bill that must be paid monthly. This will include your rent, or mortgage payment, Health Insurance, telephone bill, medical bills and water and electric bills, if you receive them. Budgeting your money is important.
3. Take a separate page and write down all bills that must be paid quarterly or anually. This would include Insurance Policies such as Auto Insurance or Health Insurance. The idea is to figure in everything bill you get regardless of what time of the month it is sent.
4. Make a total of all the bills that must be paid at any time of the year. In order to create a workable budget every bit of the money that comes in to the household must be set aside to pay for bills on a monthly basis. Budgeting your money is the only way that bills that are due in two months will be paid without worry or stress and will make you financially secure.
5. Gather all of your monthly expenses and total them. Include those bills that are set aside to be paid at a later date. These are your must be paid bills. It must accrue in your checking account to be available at a later date. If not, then you will mess up your budget and bills will not be paid on time.
6. Make a separate page and mark it as Income. These figures are the money that come into the household. They could include all of the salaries in the household, extra money selling newspapers or doing Handyman jobs. This then, is what you earn each month. It might be more or less depending on the extra jobs you take on. This is your income.
7. Start another page in the yellow pad. Mark it as additional expenses that vary. Include everything else you spend in a month. Include sanitary napkins, condums, pipe cleaner, bubble gum, tylenol, morning coffee,dog treats, toothpaste or a new tooth brush. Do not leave anything out. Save all of the receipts and write down the money costs on the extra expenses page on your budget.
8. Add the totals and place them on another page. This page should show the totals of all monthly income, expenses, and contain the bills that you still have to pay in a month or two. Be sure to include them as they are part of your expenses. In order to become financially secure you must sucessfully budget your money.
9. Look at the totals on the page. If your expenses are more than your income you are in deep trouble. It may be time to cut back on the expenses to budget your money. If is important to see what is absolutely necessary to buy and what can be eliminated so as to cut back on unnecessary spending and become financially secure.
