The Importance of Budgeting for Life's Changes |
By Jeff Miles on November 30, 2010
.jpg.aspx?width=75&height=75) Many people think of budgeting as bad as thing or as something one has do as punishment for not making or saving enough money. This isn’t the case. While budgeting is an effective to get spending under control if it isn’t already, making a budget is important for everyone, especially in this economy of rising costs and falling incomes.
So why exactly are budgets important? Well first of all, you always want your income to be higher than your expenses, and budgeting ensures that this will happen every month. Budgeting is also essential for everyone to make certain that you will be financially secure in the future. You never know when you or a relative could get seriously ill or your pipes could break.i It’s also important that save a little each month for retirement or your children’s college.
CNN Money—a collaboration between CNN and Fortune and Money magazines—recommends creating a budget in three steps. First, they say that you identify where and how you spend your money. You may be surprised to find that you spend $100 per month on mochas and obviously that needs to change. That’s where step two comes in: assess what you currently spending and make a plan for the future; decide where you can cut back and little and where you can spend or save more. Step three logically follows: track your spending to ensure that you stay within the plan you setup for yourself.ii
CNN Money further advises that you don’t go to the ATM more than once per week, that you remember to account inflation if your income begins to rise, and that you only spend 90% of what you will take in so you always have a little left over.
It’s important to remember not to get stressed out and not to be too hard on yourself. You’re not alone; there are a lot of resources out there for you take advantage of. Links to a few free budget calculators and worksheets are listed below:
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance: http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/budget/
Google Docs: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/templates_finance.html
Sources:
i Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Orange County, California http://www.cccsoc.org/pages/ownership/ownership_04.phtml
ii CNN Money: Money 101, Lesson 2: Making a Budget http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson2/
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