Why is it Necessary to Budget? Download your FREE Spreadsheet.

Having a budget or living with a budget does not have to be as scary as it sounds. Neither does it mean taking the cheaper option, having to make do with lower quality things. It only means knowing how much money you have available to spend and this can only be a good thing.

A budget can be for a day if you are out for the day and have a certain amount of cash to spend. It can be for a week, or however long you want to make it.

The best thing about a long term budget is that you are not only in control of how much money you have now, but you are able to forecast how much money you will have in a year’s time, or five year’s time or longer, assuming that things stay the same.

The magic of this is that it allows you to see exactly what goes where. You can see where the little wormholes which suck up the cash for no reason and you can see work out your minimum monthly amount. That is what is the absolute minimum income you need to have to keep everything ticking along.

Then with the rest of the income, you are free to spend it however you like. You can pay off debts, you can save up to buy that special thing you have always wanted or go on that holiday of a lifetime.

Having a budget can actually free you to do more with your income.

And it is much better than living in the dark, not knowing how much money comes in, how much goes out.

I have put together an excel spreadsheet which can let someone manage their monthly budget over a year.
It is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD for anyone who wants to use it.

It can be downloaded from this page.

If you find it useful then please feel free to click one of the adverts on the right of this page.

There is a Microsoft Word document which explains how to use it.

To use it you will need to have Microsoft Excel.

 

FREE DOWNLOAD – Budget Spreadsheet

There are two files to download, one is the excel spreadsheet and the other is the Microsoft Word description of the spreadsheet.

Free Download Budget Spreadsheet

Budget Spreadsheet Free Download

Thank you for downloading these and thanks for reading my blog.

If you find these useful, then please click on one of the adverts on my blog.

Back to the How to Survive Blog

 

Coaching service is Fully Booked

Please do not book any time slots for coaching. I am fully booked at the moment.

I will remove this post when more slots become available

 

Paypal Violin Update

As an update to the Violin destruction incident that was featured heavily in the blogosphere earlier this year, I felt that it was important to let the people over at Paypal have a chance to voice their side of what happened and give an explanation about why they ordered the destruction of an antique violin before determining whether it was genuine or not.

There was much debate online in many different forums: about paypal, musicians forums and also in general forums. Some people said that it was because it may be illegal to post a counterfeit item. This was reiterated in a statement by a paypal employee:

A spokesperson for PayPal said: “While we cannot talk about this particular case due to PayPal’s privacy policy, we carefully review each case, and in general we may ask a buyer to destroy counterfeit goods if they supply signed evidence from a knowledgeable third party that the goods are indeed counterfeit. The reason why we reserve the option to ask the buyer to destroy the goods is that in many countries, including the US, it is a criminal offence to mail counterfeit goods back to a seller.”

taken from the Guardian newspaper

But in reality this is nothing but a smokescreen by paypal. Before establishing the veracity of the claim, the violin is a bit of a Schrodinger’s cat. Is it real? Is it counterfeit? Before they know, how can it be a problem to post it? Would the buyer post it to an expert for authentication? The seller had a certificate from a luthier to show that it was authentic but paypal chose to ignore this because all sellers are cheating, lying, underworld criminals trying to hoodwink the poor, helpless buyer at every turn!

But, I sent off an email to a contact at paypal customer services nevertheless to try and find out the result of the enquiries they had conducted.

Dear ‘Customer Services‘,

Earlier this year, there was a story about a suposedly antique violin which had been ordered to be destroyed by Paypal. It was widely reported that you were conducting your own enquiries into the matter.

Since several months have now passed, I was wondering whether you had come to any conclusions regarding this matter.

 This is the reply I received several days ago and have not heard anything back since:

Thank you for contacting PayPal Customer Service.

In an effort to assist you as quickly and efficiently as possible,

please direct all customer service inquires through our website. Click

on the hyperlink below to go to the PayPal website. To ask a question

that is specific to your account, you must log in to your account. If

you indicate the type of question you have with as much detail as you

can, we will be able to provide you with the best customer service

possible.

If your email program is unable to open hyperlinks, please copy and

paste this URL into the address bar of your browser.

https://www.paypal.com/ewf/f=default

If you are contacting PayPal because you are unable to log into your

account, please use the contact form below.

https://www.paypal.com/ewf/f=default

Thank you for choosing PayPal!

This email is sent to you by the contracting entity to your User

Agreement, either PayPal Inc, PayPal Pte. Ltd or PayPal (Europe) S.à

r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. Société en Commandite par Actions, Registered Office:

5th Floor 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg RCS Luxembourg B 118

349.

 

Baby Proof Your Home!!

If you have one of these for the first time then the chances are that you have not looked around your home from knee height in a while. If you have a particularly mobile one, then they can move at a surprisingly fast rate.

Once one of these starts to move around, then it is only a matter of days before they have mastered the shuffle, the super-crawl and the turbo-toddle.

Sometimes, some parents may have had quite a docile one already and so they have had a relatively easy time. But the next one which comes is a real surprise.

If you turn around even for a second, then they are off. The main objective is to have a taste of all those tempting objects which have only been observed until now from an infuriatingly safe distance!

If it can be picked up, it can be tasted.
If you can do it undisturbed, try to isolate your little explorer in one room and make that room as safe as possible.

Baby Proof!


The best way to do this is to install a baby gate before they start to crawl around and keep it closed.

• Examine the room at ankle height and cover up any exposed sockets with blank plugs so that wet fingers can not investigate them.
• Remove all fragile ornaments and all things with small parts.
• Look at things which might be head height when your little terranaut stands up. When the attention is diverted, it is always really easy to walk in to things.
• Look for low tables with table cloths which could be pulled off easily. Remove them completely if possible.
• Put baby covers on all furniture with sharp corners.
• Anything that can possibly be climbed will be climbed, given time. Remove all fragile ornaments from higher shelves, especially if these look particularly tasty!
• If possible get rid of all loose flexes or fasten them down in some way so that they can not be pulled out and tasted.

It only takes a few weeks for them to be sitting there, innocently gurgling at you to running rings around you. Don’t be deceived. It might look like they are gurgling directly at you, but in reality, they are looking right past your left ear at a ceramic ornament on the shelf and wondering what it tastes like!

Be prepared

 

How to Survive Google’s New Privacy Policy

From the 1st of March, Google will implement a new privacy policy across many of its products.
The aim is to give you a more personalised searching experience – whether you want one or not!

Every time you perform any search through Google’s search engine, and click on any of the results, Google will keep a track of your search clicking activities and will tailor the results it gives you next time to suit your interests mores.

This is already annoying, if, for example you have bought a pair of trousers from M&S and then every single web site you go on for the next few days shows you nothing but adverts for trousers from M&S. But you already have bought trousers, so why would you want to see them everywhere you go?

The way to stop this is to log in to your Google account and go to ‘Account Settings’.

Find ‘Services’ and you will see a link whick lets you ‘Go to web history’.

From this page it is possible to click on ‘Remove all web history’

You can also ‘Pause’ your web history on the same page. This stops it from gathering any more information about you.

This should stop any more information being kept about your internet activity.

 

How to Survive Being Ginger

Picture attribution Melbourne Weekly Eastern

There have been a number of news articles recently about people with ginger hair suffering because of their hair colour.

There has been someone teased so badly that his parents removed him from school and a poor woman who has had a childhood photograph circulated and has received actual hate messages on her facebook page.

At first I did not understand this at all. It is hair. In many cases, ginger people have thicker hair per cm than other hair colours, and it looks much shinier than normal. So, in essence, what we are talking about is a beautiful, thick shiny head of gorgeous colour hair.

But of course, people are ignorant and lazy and stupid and it is ‘fun’ to mock something which is different or strange or in the minority, so it is very easy to believe that some people are mercilessly taunted for nothing but their hair colour. Even reading that sentence back seems ridiculous, but it happens everyday, so it is something that many have to live with.

A search through Google is not very enlightening either. The first four pages of a search have websites which seem to do nothing but make fun of ginger locks. They are in this category : the ginger survival guide. This page amounts to nothing more than race hate and should, in my opinion, be removed from the internet. It is a treatise on how to ‘cope’ in the presence of Ginger kids and ends with a chapter on how to kill a ginger person. Reading this drivel made me realise that this is a serious problem.

What about in the past? How much did Boticelli love ginger hair? A lot. As did many of the Renaissance painters. Ginger angels, women, men and gods are perfectly common in hundreds of paintings. Why? Was ginger hair more valued perhaps, because it was rarer? Like gold? In fact, the ancient Greeks died their hair ginger to denote courage.

Muslims are not allowed to dye their hair back to its original colour, but are allowed to use Henna. So many older muslim men, especially in India have red hair and beards.

Many famous and influential people in the past have had red hair. Queen Elizabeth I, Winston Churchill, Boudicca of the Iceni, Vincent van Gough – there are many long lists on the internet.

Recently, Prince Harry, Nicole Kidman, Geri Halliwell, Lindsay Lohan, Rupert Grint, Emma Stone, Lily Cole and a host of other people have flaming red locks. Marilyn Monroe was a red-head!

And many people dye their hair in various shades of red every day.

So it is really difficult to know what to say to people who are undoubtedly suffering.

Some people find it easy to embrace their looks in general no matter whether they fit stereotypical, media-depicted versions of normalcy. Others struggle with their self image no matter what others tell them or however realistically they fit the mold of good looks.

So, How to Survive Being Ginger?


I do not think it is a good idea to hide from something as fundamental to your identity as your hair colour. It may be a solution for a few years, but surely not for the rest of your life. If people are teasing you, just imagine how much satisfaction they would derive to know that their teasing is working.

There is a story where two people with ginger hair who lived in a house together found out that their house was being called the Ginger Palace. Instead of being upset, or lashing out, or hiding from this, they decided to hold a party where only people with red hair were invited and this has become a major tradition for them.

The fact is that bullies and idiots will always pick on difference. But the important thing is to hold your head up high and be the person you are and show all the idiots that they are the losers.

But just learn to live with the nicknames about your hair and your skin and your freckles. You know that everyone you meet will have some comment to make about your hair so next time someone says ‘Carrot top’, just laugh. Carrots are green on top anyway!

 

How to Survive an English Yellow Box Road Junction

A yellow box road junction is there to ease the flow of traffic. A driver should not enter the space in the yellow box unless their exit is clear.

If the red car was going to go straight ahead, then they can go straight on without stopping, but if it was turning right, then it has to wait until the road is clear.

This is so that no car stops the flow of traffic by holding up the oncoming traffic.

Some councils police their yellow box by having cameras installed and issue fines for those people who break these rules.

 

Case Study One: Extremely Taken for Granted

My new consultancy service was launched last week and the first person has given permission for me to write up their case study here.

Simply book a time slot and briefly tell me the problem and I will call you for one hour to discuss whatever issue you may have.

Extremely Taken For Granted

I will call the first person ‘Sam’. And this is Sam’s story.
Sam owns three houses. The plan was to let them out and build up enough income and savings to buy more houses and to set up a property business buying and selling property. The problem is that Sam’s family have been living in the houses instead! So there is little or no rent coming in and Sam is paying three mortgages as well as rent on the family home. This has been going on for over ten years which means that Sam has paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds, literally in mortgages with very little return.

To top it all, Sam has been unemployed for the past three years and has now built up a large credit card debt just to pay for everything. The family do not offer to help with anything and do not offer to pay their share of the money and do not even question how Sam pays thousands of pounds each month in property bills alone.

I asked what Sam has done to try to get the family to pay their share. Sam said: given deadlines for them to move out, threatened to stop paying the mortgages, given ultimatums but nothing ever happens.

I asked what happens when the deadlines come?

Sam said: Everything goes quiet for a bit and then it all carries on like before.

Is there a Solution To This Problem?
It is so difficult when family members take you for granted like this. At the beginning, Sam was wanting to show that Sam could cope with the extra payments. Trying not to reveal a vulnerable side, especially to family members has cost Sam greatly in financial terms.

Then, as the years roll by, and everyone settles in to the new way of life, the roles are reinforced by repetition. the dependants become more needy and it becomes harder and harder to find a way to get them to move. Now, they maybe do not even think about how much money it is costing because they just take it completely for granted that it will be taken care of.

Giving weak deadlines and not sticking to them or following through with the threats meant that all credibility was lost and everyone knows that they are empty threats. But also, how could Sam stop paying the mortgages on the property since that would be self-destructive and would result in all the property being lost as well.

I wondered how Sam would feel about now laying all the cards on the table and sitting down with the family members and showing them exactly how much money was going down the drain each month. they might be shocked into action. But once again, Sam said that it would be difficult to show a weakness like that.

We discussed whether Sam could stop paying an extra, expensive rent each month and start to live in one of the other houses as well. That sounded like a possibility which would save some money.

Or tell the family that one of the houses was being sold and actually follow through by registering with an estate agent. There is enough room in the remaining houses for everyone to have rooms. The sale could let Sam start fresh and pay off those debts.

It is clear where Sam stands legally, but family matters always prove a lot more delicate if harmony is to be maintained, but it is completely unfair if one person has to carry everyone else like that, especially if that person is not able to cope themselves.

Sam is going to try some of the suggestions we discussed and book another call next month. I sincerely wish Sam luck.

 

How to Survive on a Budget

The first step is to work out what your weekly or monthly budget is.
This could be your pocket money, or your monthly allowance or your income.

Many people these days use online banking. If you do, download the last statement for the last complete month and open it up as a spreadsheet. If you do not have online banking, and your bank sends you monthly statements, then enter it into a spreadsheet. For pocket money or allowances, enter the amount that you regularly receive.

Now sort the spreadsheet into types of transaction. This will separate your income from your regular outgoings and your extra expenditure. From this spreadsheet, it is now clearly easy to where the money goes every month.

As Mr. Micawber famously said

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”

From which you can see, if you spend more than you earn, then you will be miserable!
So, now you know how much of your income goes out on things that you can not avoid, like rent/mortgage, travel, utility bills, kids etc. And after this, whatever is left is your budget for the month. I hope there is something left.

Look carefully through the monthly expenses. Are there any items that can be easily reduced? Do you pay too much for insurance? Can you cut down on any other bills by switching to another company? The moneysavingexpert website is very good for searching for money saving deals.

If you have been following my budget food posts, then hopefully you can make some savings with the week’s food budget to opt for cheaper alternatives, or to cut down on waste.

Once you have made as many savings as possible, then work out an amount of money which you can safely spend over the month.

For food expenses, to live within a budget the key is to plan. You can not plan every single meal or allow for emergencies and unexpected invitations, but in general, you know that you will have three meals a day and these can be planned in advance. This way you can decide how much you will spend on your food budget for the month.

A good way to live on a budget is to leave all debit and credit cards at home. Because we are survivors, we do not cut up our cards or anything so drastic, but we stay prepared for all emergencies. If we only carry the exact money in our bags or pockets that we need to spend, then it will be much harder to overspend. It really feels like spending if you have to hand over the actual money instead of just giving your card. For some reason, the card seems to be detached from you and your bank account. So even people with not very much money happily hand over cards to buy things they do not need. But if you really have to give someone £58 in cash, then you actually feel it!

So, cut down where you can.
Work out how much you can reasonably spend per week or day and carry that amount with you.
It is very easy to get out of the spending habit if you have to use cash.