Working with a limited income can be a struggle. When there’s an emergency, money can dwindle away in a matter of a few seconds. With careful planning and creating a budget, living from one paycheck to another or with minimal funds can be accomplished. After the budget is created, it’s important to stick with it so that you can begin saving money instead of spending it all the time.
Keep It Simple
A budget that has a lot of details is usually one that you won’t follow. Start by listing your income along with the necessary payments that you need to make each week or month. Set a few goals that you have in mind for using the budget, such as saving money for a vacation or saving money for a car. Once you can see where your money is going each month, you can start to cut out some of the extras that you spend money on, such as going out to eat, so that you can save money.
Websites
There are numerous websites that have templates to help you create a budget. You simply enter the income that you have each month with the payments that you make for the site to calculate how much money you have left over. You can view graphs and other tables to get an idea of how each check needs to be spent to maintain your budget.
Professional Planners
A financial planner like Fogel Capital Management, Inc. or a similar firm is someone who can work with you to develop your budgeting skills. You’re going to need to offer your income information to the planner as well as the payments that you make. Once the planner has this information, you can sit down together to talk about the best ways to get ahead and to ensure that everything is getting paid on time. A benefit of a financial planner is that this is a person who can develop a few different budgets before choosing one that would work best for you.
The Envelope System
This is an easy system to try if you’re just getting into budgeting. Write the name of a payment on each envelope. When you get paid, put the amount of money needed to make the payment in the envelope. You can also make envelopes for groceries, clothing, and entertainment. Money needs to be put inside the envelopes for monthly payments first before putting anything inside the one for entertainment and clothing. This system will help you to see where your money is going and better learn how to keep from spending more than you have.
A budget is easy to create as there are numerous tools available. In order for a budget to work, you have to abide by what you set without spending extra money each month. It can be difficult to adjust your spending at first, but once you start to see money added to your bank account, then you’ll be able to have a little more leeway with the budget.