Posted by admin on Mar 19, 2010 in
How To Budget
Who do not want to be a wealthy person? I bet most people will say that they would like to be wealthy. However, the problem here is that no many people will know how to become wealthy. In fact, it is not very difficult to become wealthy. Yet you need to do it step by step and here are some tips for you.
Most experts will tell you that you will first of all set a budget. Yes it is very important to set a personal budget. However, I will say budget is not the most important thing or the first thing you need. In fact, the first thing you need to do is to adjust your attitude. You need to have an attitude that keep reminding yourself that you want to become wealthy. By adjusting your attitude, you will be able to stick to your budget. You will also have the discipline in order to become wealthy. All these cannot be done if you cannot really adjust your attitude.
You should also have some goals. For example, if you are aiming at save fifteen thousand dollars in five years. Then you know you have to save $250 a month. When you have this goal, you will have a greater chance of successfully save the amount the money you want. You will not be able to do so if you do not really have a goal.
Now, let us talk about the budget. There are tons of articles and books teaching you how to set your budget. It is in fact a matter of mathematics and what you need to do is to compare your expenditure and income. Yet, what you need to be careful at this point is that you have to save some money to your saving account every month. This is one of the crucial steps for you to gradually accumulate your wealth. Of course, you must try your best to stick to the budget otherwise it will just be useless.
You should also learn to invest. Your hard earned money cannot help you to generate more income if you only put the money into your saving account. To this end you have learn to invest. There are lots of investment tools and you should try to engage into different ways of investment. You may consider invest in the stock of Forex market. However, you have to bear in mind that there are also some risks when you are investing. You have to make your decision carefully.
Tags: become, Person, simple, Steps, Wealthy
Posted by admin on Feb 6, 2010 in
How To Budget
There’s no question, a budget is the best way to gain control over your finances and live a life free of financial stress. Here are the simple steps to achieve this:
Step 1: Collect your financial information together. This will include every credit card statement, bank statement and your receipts. Anything that documents your expenses for the last three months needs to be collected. What are you going to do with this information? You’re going to use it to categorize your expenses. What do you spend on your home? What do you spend on your car? Your food? Your health? Entertainment? You’re not tracking your expenses right now, you’re simply coming up with expense categories and sub-categories for your budget. If it makes it easier, begin by drafting the categories and sub-categories you think your expenses will fall into. As you go through your expenses you can verify your category decisions.
Step 2: Gather your income statements or profit and loss sheets and determine how much money you really have to budget with. You can use either your net or gross income as your number, just be consistent. Also, if you choose to use your gross income, make sure to account for your taxes on your list of expenses.
Step 3: Using the same documents you used to create your budget expense categories and sub-categories, now examine how much you spend each month on each. I highly recommend that you write this number down. It may be an eye-opening exercise, but it will also help you predict how much you will spend in the future. You want your budget to be a realistic reflection of your spending habits, not a financial diet.
Step 4: Find a method of recording your budget. This could be a simple spreadsheet where your columns are a list of your categories, your weekly or monthly available spending amount, how much you actually spend and the difference between the two numbers. Your rows will be the income and expense categories you’ve already established.
Step 5: Create a budget, keeping in mind that you will want a budget category devoted to savings goals too. Once your budget is created, spend a month or two following it. Keep your budget close at hand so you can track your finances closely. Assess your spending on a weekly or monthly basis. Re-evaluate your budget if you need to. Your budget is not set in stone and some of your expenses are variable, meaning you control how much you spend on them. For example, entertainment is variable and your mortgage is fixed.
A budget is nothing more than a spending plan. It isn’t a financial diet. It is a tool to control your money and be knowledgeable and smart about where it goes. It’s your money after all, and isn’t it great to have the upper hand?
Create your Personal Budget with these simple steps and easier way. Eddie Lamb owns LiveMortgageFree a website devoted to helping homeowners, first time buyers or tenants to Live Mortgage Free.
Tags: budget, Create, Personal, simple, Steps, These
Posted by admin on Jan 9, 2010 in
How To Budget
Rules. No-one likes rules. But we all realize that if we didn’t follow traffic rules and stop at a red light, our streets would be chaos. If you want to have a successful personal budget, you have to follow the rules (in this case one simple rule).
Many people believe that there are a lot of rules to follow when making a personal budget. People believe you must work on your budget every day, and keep track of every penny you spend, or else your budget won’t work. Most people think budgets are a lot of work.
Most people also believe that budgets are hard. They think you need to be an accountant to be able to create and maintain a personal budget.
Budgets can be a lot of work, but they don’t need to be, if you follow the First Rule of Making a Personal Budget: Keep it Simple. Yes, like a lot of things in life, the KISS rule applies to your personal budget.
Don’t try to create a complicated series of linked spreadsheets with fancy graphs and tables. Don’t try to master the most complicated personal budgeting software. Don’t believe that you have to go to school and study bookkeeping and accounting to make your budget work for you. Keep it simple.
Start with a blank piece of paper, or a blank spreadsheet, and make a list of what you spend money on every month. That’s right, you are not making a budget; you are making a list – how easy is that?
Most people can’t even make a list of what they spend each month, because they have no idea what they spend their money on. No problem. Keep it simple. Get a pencil and a piece of paper, and carry them with you everywhere. Whenever you spend money, write in down. At the end of a normal week, you will have a good idea of where you spend your money.
You could then take your week’s worth of notes and make a monthly budget. But, to make your budget even simpler, do a separate budget for every pay check, or make a separate column on your spreadsheet for every paycheck. That means if you get paid every week, have a column for every week.
Then, make a plan for how you will spend every paycheck. It’s much simpler to decide how to spend your paycheck this week than it is to try to budget for the next six months.
Read that sentence again: make a plan for how you will spend your money. That’s the only reason for making a budget. By keeping track of where your money goes, you can make a plan to spend your money where you want to spend it.
If you keep it simple, your budget will be a success. And remember, if you don’t follow this simple rule, your personal finances will be a mess, and you could have to declare personal bankruptcy. So keep it simple, because proper budgeting is the best personal bankruptcy alternative.
Jay Lewis writes about personal finance topics, including budgeting, debt, and bankruptcy alternatives. More information can be found on how to make a personal budget and bankruptcy alternatives at http://www.bankruptcy-alternatives-information.com
Tags: budget, first, keep, making, Personal, rule, simple