Skip to main content

Budgeting Tip: How to Manage Your Money

A carpenter uses a set of house plans to build a house. If he didn't the bathroom might get overlooked altogether.

Rocket Scientists would never begin construction on a new booster rocket without a detailed set of design specifications. Yet most of us go blindly out into the world without an inkling of an idea about finances and without any plan at all.

Not very smart of us, is it?

A money plan is called a budget and it is crucial to get us to our desired financial goals.

Without a plan we will drift without direction and end up marooned on a distant financial reef.

If you have a spouse or a significant other, you should make this budget together. Sit down and figure out what your joint financial goals are…long term and short term.

Then plan your route to get to those goals. Every journey begins with one step and the first step to attaining your goals is to make a realistic budget that both of you can live with.

A budget should never be a financial starvation diet. That won't work for the long haul. Make reasonable allocations for food, clothing, shelter, utilities and insurance and set aside a reasonable amount for entertainment and the occasional luxury item. Savings should always come first before any spending.

Even a small amount saved will help you reach your long term and short term financial goals. You can find many budget forms on the internet. Just use any search engine you choose and type in "free budget forms".

You'll get lots of hits. Print one out and work on it with your spouse or significant other. Both of you will need to be happy with the final result and feel like it's something you can stick to.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buried Treasures in Bohol Philippines

Written by Joe Espiritu       Four persons died in a treasure hunting accident last week. They died for nothing. Many had lost their shirts in the venture, the propensity for Filipinos to get rich quick attribute to the treasure hunting mania. The sad part is that only the ignorant venture on the search, those in the know, being sure that nothing will come out of the effort would not think of investing money, time and effort – this time lives – in a fruitless enterprise.        There had been stories of people getting rich uncovering treasure troves in unlikely places. Most stories are false. Ancient graves of archeological and anthropological value had been desecrated by treasure hunters. They had found nothing. Those people may have struck it rich but not from some hidden riches. Contrary to what other people say, there are no buried treasures in Bohol . If there had been, they were unearthed years ago.         If one ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Detonators in Hebei, China

The death toll has risen to eight after Saturday's explosion triggered by detonators illegally manufactured and stored at a residential building in north China's Hebei Province, local authorities said Monday. Five more bodies were retrieved while rescuers were clearing the debris in the city of Baoding, the city government said in a statement late Monday. Another 27 people are still under treatment in hospital, it added. Two suspects, a 38-year-old man surnamed Ge and his 42-year-old girlfriend, turned themselves in to police Monday noon in the eastern province of Anhui. Ge and two relatives started producing detonators in 2009. Due to poor sales, the three stored unsold detonators at a house of the six-storey building in Dongwuyao Village. The explosion that occurred Saturday afternoon toppled part of the building and also shattered the glass windows of buildings 200 meters away.
Post a Comment
Read more

U.S. economic data reacts to crude oil price

Crude prices rose on Thursday as U.S. economic data came in positive and continuing unrest in the Middle East caused supplies fears. Market sentiment was boosted after the Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate, much faster than 2.0 percent it estimated last month. It was the quickest quarterly growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2011, helped by faster inventory accumulation and export growth, which offset weak consumer spending and a drop in business investment. Meanwhile, a report from the Labor Department added to the upbeat tone. The report showed U.S. initial jobless claims declined 23,000 in the week ended Nov. 24 to 393,000, as effect of Hurricane Sandy faded. Pending home sales climbed 5.2 percent in October, surging to its highest level in more than five years, according to the National Association of Realtors. Traders were closely watching the situation in the Middle East, in particular the viole...
Post a Comment
Read more