deepstash
Beta
Your 6-Step Guide to Making a Personal Budget
What a Budget Does
As a personal financial planning tool, a written, monthly budget allows you to plan for how you'll spend and/or save your money each month and also keep track of your spending patterns.
With a budget, you can begin to prioritize your spending and better manage your money and financial future.
74 SAVES
This is a professional note extracted from an online article.
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
/how-to-make-a-budget-1289587-Final2-5c9259f8c9e77c00014a9e66.png)
2
Key Ideas
Make a Budget in 6 Simple Steps
- Gather every financial statement you can (bank statements, investment accounts, recent utility bills).
- Record all of your sources of income.
- Create a list of monthly expenses.
- Break expenses into 2 categories: fixed and variable.
- Total your monthly income and monthly expenses.
- Make adjustments to expenses: If you have accurately identified and listed all of your expenses, the ultimate goal would be to have your income and expense columns to be equal.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
5
Key Ideas
A Monthly Budget For Your Money
No matter how little or how much money you earn, creating a monthly budget is one of the most important aspects of managing your finances. What gets measured gets managed.
...
The Envelope System
The Envelope system is a way to track your variable expenses like food, entertainment, and drinks.
This method, preferably used weekly, allocates a certain amount in each category in labeled envelopes (food, drinks, movies, etc.). Once the envelope is empty, you are done spending in that category.
How to Create a Good Budget
The principles that make a good budget, something you can stick to:
- Being Realistic: Being too strict is a recipe for failure.
- Making Adjustments: A budget is not set in stone, but a fluid thing.
- A Team Sport: If you live with a partner or spouse, you have to agree mutually on how to budget the financials.
- Expect the Unexpected: Keep an emergency fund, ideally 3-6 months of necessary expenses.
- Budgeting the Expected: Certain upcoming expenses need to be budgeted in advance, like property tax, holiday shopping, etc.
2 more ideas
7
Key Ideas
Budgeting = creating a plan to spend your money
Budgeting is simply balancing your expenses with your income.
It's a plan for the coordination of resources and expenditures. When you budget your money, there’s a desir...
How to create a budget
- Gather Some Financial Information: gather a detailed list of your income and expenses.
- Select a Budgeting Method: figure out how you’ll budget your money to meet your most pressing financial goals.
- Create Your Budget: tally up all your expenses and income to see where you stand and allocate expenses.
- Execute Your Plan: you can use a notebook, pen and paper, a spreadsheet or an online software.
- Reward Yourself: you can work a small percentage into your budget to treat yourself each month.
The 70:20:10 budgeting method
This method suggests that you allocate 70 percent of your income to expenses, 20 percent to savings, and the remaining 10 percent to debt.
70:20:10 may work for someone with a healthy emergency fund and minimal debt.
4 more ideas
1
Key Idea
When budgeting comes in handy
- You have no idea where your money is going.
- You’re chronically overspending.
- You’re not saving any money.
- You struggle to afford the things you really want.
- You...