Maintain a Budget for Personal Use

Maintaining a budget is probably the hardest thing for a person to do. You’re the one that is supposed to maintain money, instead of wondering where it went. Think about what you can buy on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Here are some tips to help you maintain a budget.

Steps

Budgeting Help

Doc:List of Expenses,Low Income Budget,High Income Budget

Develop a Budget

  1. Determine your income. Review recent check stubs. Total your monthly income.
  2. Determine all of your outgoing expenses, including bills and spending money.
    • The best way to determine your outgoing expenses is to only make purchases and pay bills through your bank account for a 30 day period. At the end of the 30 day period, review your bank statement to total all outgoing expenses.
    • If you do not have a bank account, tracking your outgoing expenses may be harder and not as accurate. Sit down and write out all your monthly bill payments. Also, estimate how much money you spend in a given month on food and beverages, car maintenance, activities, and etc. Total this number and multiply by 4 to get your monthly expenses.
  3. Compare the amount you make in a month to the amount you spend in a month. Expenses should never be more than your income. Housing costs should account for no more than 30% of your income. 10% of your income should be saved. If either of the above strategies is not possible, then you should consider revising your budget.

Revise a Budget

Sometimes it will be necessary to revise your budget because of unforeseen events. You may lose your job, take a pay cut, or have an emergency where you need to spend more money that you usually would for a given month. When this happens you will need to revise your budget to meet your new income, even if it is just for a short period of time.

  1. Figure out how much you have for income for the given month
  2. Subtract your NECESSARY expenses (such as lights and gas, rent, food, etc.)
  3. Subtract the unforeseen expense that came up for the month
  4. This will then give you your new budget amount
    • You can now see how much you have to spend on miscellaneous things

Cut Expenses

  1. Cut out coupons for the things you usually buy at the store, and not for the things you do not need.
  2. Double up on coupons. You could use a store coupon and manufacturers coupon together.
  3. Write a grocery list, so you do not forget anything and it helps you stay on target and not get sidetracked.
  4. Buy non-name brand items or store brand items. These items are usually the same quality as top brand names. You can save an average on thirty percent.
  5. When on the highway use cruise control. You save fourteen percent on gas with an average saving of seven percent. This would come out to about twenty cents discount on each gallon.
  6. Limit the amount of driving. You could carpool or catch a bus.
  7. Combine trips, you could do several short trips in one longer trip. For example, designate Thursday for errand day. Get everything done that day, than you will not have to make wasted trips continuously throughout the week.
  8. Stop wasting your money on lottery tickets. Lottery is just a tax on the poor and on people who cannot do math. If everyone decided to save their two dollars ( sometimes a lot more than this amount is spent) every week, they would be saving one hundred and four dollars per year and one thousand and forty over ten years.
  9. Do not dine out. A family of four eating at a fast food restaurant would cost somewhere around twenty-five dollars. If you take two trips per week, it would total to fifty dollars. Over the course of the year, you would spend about two thousand six hundred dollars. If you were to dine out at let’s say Applebee’s it would cost you around forty dollars, overall the course of the year it would be four thousand dollars. Instead, prepare meals at home to save money.
  10. Don’t buy alcohol. You could save twenty percent on your bill.
  11. Use coupons. Many restaurants offer coupons.
  12. Know about breaks for kids. Kids eat free on some nights at certain restaurants. Check with the restaurant before traveling, to ensure this is part of their policy.
  13. Order takeout. You can drink pop at home and you don’t have to leave a tip.
  14. Instead of entrees, buy appetizers. Meals have become so super-sized that one meal can feed at least two or three people.
  15. Turn off the lights when you are not in the room. Being conservative with the thermostat and air-drying clothes and dishes. Instead of regular lights, put in compact fluorescent bulbs.
  16. Keep your car well maintained. A well-tuned engine burns less gas. Get all the junk out of the trunk. For every two hundred and fifty pounds your engine hauls, the car loses about one mile per gallon.
  17. Pay with cash. Sometimes the store may charge you more money, if you use a credit card. Check the specific store before your visit, to ensure whether they charge or not is true.
  18. Buy a fuel-efficient car.
  19. Water
  20. Install aerating, low- flow faucets and shower heads.
  21. Take a shower, instead of taking a bath. It uses less water, and thereby decreases the amount of water that is used. And since water runs through a pump(that is powered by electric), this will increase your electric bill.

Maintain a Budget

  1. Continue to be frugal using tips from “How to cut expenses”.
  2. Avoid splurges at all costs. Just because it is "on sale" does not mean you need it.
  3. If you go over your budget one month, be more diligent in cutting your expenses the following month.
  4. Use the 10% you set aside, as savings only in emergencies.
  5. Start saving money separately from your savings, if you want to go on vacation or make a large purchase. This way, you will not deplete your savings, and you will be rewarded for successfully budgeting.
  6. Re-evaluate your income and expenses occasionally, in order to update your budget.

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