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.
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