OVERCOMING BUDGET OBSTACLES

Many often associate budgeting as a headache--something that people stay up at night for, armed with a calculator and a pen. Contrary to this, the act of dividing your money according to your daily needs does not need to be complicated, as it is only a set of guidelines to help you manage your funds. Once you figure out the best strategy for you, everything else will follow so long as you stick to it diligently. Below are a few techniques to help you sort out your cash.

1. Create a list

One of the things that ticks people off when it comes to sectioning their income springs from all that manual monitoring of expenses and saving receipts. A simple way of getting this started is to have a breakdown of your salary and your monthly expenses according to the most basic necessities. If the amount you have totaled from your expenditures is lesser than your wage, you may now start distributing the money, and may even leave out some for occasional purchases. This is also a good way to assess if you are overspending and need to tighten your budget.

2. Make use of technology

To avoid the tiring process of tracking your receipts and spending, try downloading applications that does it for you. These apps categorizes the items, and lets you know your progress in meeting your financial goals. Some tools even monitor your bank accounts, cards, and retirement saving.

3. Cashing it out

It has long been proven that saving and working on a budget is easier using cash instead of credit cards. A popular method for this is the ‘envelope technique’ wherein you split the funds and put them in a labeled envelope. The first one can be for groceries, the other for rent, and so on. You may borrow from one pouch, but during emergency cases only. A more convenient style to save you the trouble of bringing all those mini pockets is to divide using paper clips with a note attached, designating what the amount is for.

You may also put specific amounts for different purposes in a single place, and get the sum you will be needing based on a timeframe of your choice. You can pull out your allowance for the week, or for the month and coordinate it with your biggest bills. A final option would be to use a debit card, provided that you carefully take control of how much you spend.