With the gloomy global economic crisis that we are presently experiencing , I believe its about time that we keep track of our daily expenditures and strictly follow our family budget so we do not end up on getting payday loans.
Here are some of my simple budgeting tips to help you out:
1. Start by creating a diary list of all your daily purchases. This list will help you track where your money is going.
2. With the budget diary list mentioned above, evaluate your spending habits. Try to itemize your list into two categories. First category would be for your basic needs
and second category for those you consider as luxury. This way, you'll
be able to assess if you're already spending more that what you really need. if you think that you're spending to much on unnecessary things then better adjust your expenditure routines.
3. Create your budget for the month. I highly suggest that you use Microsoft Excel to accomplish this task. Your budget table should at least contain the following categories:
- Item : This will list all your spendings such as grocery, utility bills such as electricity; water; cable; phone; and internet bills, car expenses (like gas and other maintenance), loans (credit, housing, car, etc.)
- Estimated Cost : This would be your estimated or anticipated value for the listed item
- Actual Cost : This column would only be filled up once the payment is made.
- Due Date : This will contain the item’s due date
- Date Paid : This will contain the date when the payment for the item was made
- Savings : The formula for this column is basically the Estimated Cost – Actual Cost
With this kind of budget list table format, you can even be encouraged to spend less since you can instantly see how much savings you can get out of your expenditures.=)
