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Why Budgeting Is Beneficial To Your Financial Health

Budgeting is a quantitative plan to manage your money. It has various benefits such as tracking your cash flow, controlling your expenses, and reaching your goals!

Be motivated to start budgeting by reading through its financial advantages:

1. TRACKS YOUR CASH FLOW

With budgeting, you can easily track how much you are earning and how much you are spending. It prevents you from wondering where your cash actually goes. Being aware of your cash flow enables you to know what you can realistically afford. With this purchasing power comes great responsibility, which is why you must aligh your cash flow to your financial goals.

2. HELPS REACH YOUR GOALS

A friend of mine was at a Tokyo flea market and she saw this beautiful Beige suede boots and tried it on. Her husband warned her that she probably would not wear it because she always goes for comfortable ballerina flats. She did not listen! She ended up donating the underused boots. This unnecessary item is an example of a purchase that is not in-lined with one’s financial goals.

If you are disorganized with your finances, there is tendency for you to spend your cash on unnecessary products and services. Budgeting helps you to reach and focus on your financial goals. It works especially if you have limited resources or live from paycheck to paycheck.

3. CONTROLS YOUR EXPENSES

When your budget is working efficiently, you are able to recognize how much you are spending in a month or a week. It requires you to refer to your existing bank statements and outgoings. This means that you will be able to see whether there are some expenses that need to be altered.

If you need to cut down on your spending, you can create a proper budget to make this financial activity easier.

4. IDENTIFIES POTENTIAL ISSUES

Aside from identifying the unnecessary expenses that you need to reduce or eliminate, budgeting enables you to identify the potential problems that can affect your financial health. Budgeting gives you the “bird’s eye view” of your current situation and enables you to make adjustments before issues appear.

5. ALLOWS YOU TO SAVE EXTRA MONEY

Budgeting goes beyond helping you with identifying and eliminating non-essential spending as it prevents you from penalties or late fees. By organizing your finances and allocating budget before the bill arrives, you are able pay your commitments on time. This will create more room for savings.

Not to mention, budgeting opens opportunities for investment. Passive income may grow your wealth even more.

Image Credits: pixabay.com

Despite all these benefits, budgeting has one huge drawback. It needs conscious effort for it to work! Are you ready to commit to a healthier financial life?

Sources: 1,2, & 3

Brilliant Ways To Simplify Your Finances

1. UNTANGLE YOUR STREAMS OF INCOME

If you are juggling through your day job, online business, personal blog, and weekend side-job…take a breather!

Multiple sources of income sounds great in theory but it can be very challenging at times. I can attest to this statement as I am freelancer. When new opportunities are handed to you, analyze if you (and your schedule) can handle another weight. You do not want to waste your precious time on things that are not necessary.

2. ALLOT MONEY USING LAST MONTH’S INCOME

Budgeting your money is efficient for two reasons. It brings you a sufficient cushion as you are a month ahead of your bills. Also, it is very helpful for people with irregular income.

Image Credits: wikihow.com/Do-Envelope-Budgeting

3. CUT DOWN YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS

In a world filled with choices, most people have several number of financial accounts. You may have an account that brings highest interest or another that brings the highest shopping rebates. More than being complicated, the constant shuffling between these accounts can get messy. This is why you must narrow down the number of your accounts.

4. REDUCE YOUR JUNK

Reduce your physical and virtual junk authorizing creditors or vendors to issue bills using one method. If you want to go paperless, keep digital copies of your important documents on the “cloud” or on an external hard drive. If you are old-fashioned, organize all your documents in labeled folders or boxes.

5. SET SMART FINANCIAL GOALS

Develop a habit of financial goal setting to know where you are going and to plan how you can get there. Write down your financial goals with a trusted witness and contemplate the monetary milestone you would like to accomplish in the next 2 to 5 years. Track down your monthly progress.

6. CONSOLIDATE YOUR BILLS

Are you tired of receiving 3 separate bills for your landline, hand phone, and internet services? Consider consolidating all of them in a single bill by signing on bundled services. For example, Singtel’s Fibre Home Bundle (1 Gbps) offers the following:

a. Fibre Broadband,
b. Wireless Dual-band Router
c. 4G Mobile Broadband Plan, and
d. Home Digital Line with free unlimited local calls.

This plan costs S$59.90/month with a contract of 2 years. What is nice about this plan is that it offers an additional “10% off monthly Mobile subscription” (T&C apply).

Image Credits: pixabay.com

By bundling these services together, you just eliminated 2 monthly bills!

Sources: 1, 2, & 3

Stop Worrying About Making Ends Meet, Know Where Your Money Goes

Living barely within your income is not a laughing matter! When you are living from paycheck to paycheck, your life is filled with constant stress, worry, and dread. It is a struggle to gain control of your money and your commitments.

How did you end up like this?

For starters, you not be planning for your future and only thinking about the current situation. With this attitude, do not be surprised if you will be working beyond the retirement age! Another reason maybe due to your history of overspending. Perhaps you were spending too much before that you fell into an avalanche of debt and can never move pass it.

In order to cease your worries, a huge turnover can be money flow management. You must give conscious effort to know about where your money flows in and out. Once you have control over your money flow. Then, you will be able to create a systematic financial operating system that consists of: money flow management and budgeting.

Start by identifying your fixed expenses (essentials), variable expenses (non-essentials), and savings (investments) first. Organize these items in a physical ledger or a budgeting App such as EXPENSIFY, MONEYWISE, POCKET EXPENSE PERSONAL FINANCE, and MINT.

Allocating your money to fixed expenses shall be your top priority. Fixed expenses include the goods and services that you cannot live without. Your rent, utility bills, school fees, and transportation costs fall under this category. Since our spending habits and personal needs are different, you must include the categories that are relevant to you. For example, a hand phone is a necessary means of communication. However, the type of hand phone that you bought makes all the difference.

Do you really need the latest Smartphone released by Apple when your current hand phone is working just fine? If you are purchasing it for vanity’s sake then it becomes a non-essential.

Non-essentials or variable expenses include the goods and services that do not compromise your survival. This category includes your clubbing costs, shopping sprees, and overseas vacations. Always save your non-essentials fund for last to prevent becoming broke.

The last category is your savings. Your savings not only protect you from unwanted events but it also prepares you for the future. It includes your investments in stocks, bonds, properties, or mutual funds (items that generate profit). Once your done with your fixed expenses, come up with a well-thought-off amount for your savings that you can consistently maintain.

Some people believe that purchasing a car is considered as investment but in respect to the categories of the “money flow management”, it is not. You see, every time you drive your new vehicle, its value depreciates. It is more of an asset that can sometimes be used as a collateral when you take out a loan.

Image Credits: www.pixabay.com

Always ensure that pay your bills on time, otherwise it will defeat the purpose of the above system. With a smart way of prioritizing your expenses and budgeting your money, you will find yourself in a more stable position in no time!

Balanced Budget: A Unique Balancing Act

DEFINITION

Balanced budget is a situation in financial planning wherein the revenue and expense columns of the working budget are equal.

Having a balanced budget occurs not only when the person’s total revenues equate to the total expenses but also when the total revenues exceed the total expenses within a full year. So even if the budget shows an outstanding lead on the revenue side of the balance sheet, it can still be called a balanced budget. Company’s operating budget for a forthcoming year can be termed balanced based on predictions or estimates.

An alternative to the annual balanced budget is the cyclically balanced budget. The cyclically balanced budget follows the economic cycle wherein the budget goes through the dynamics of surpluses and deficits. Theoretically, if the economy goes through the ups and downs, it should your budget should balance itself out.

COMPONENTS

The 5 components of a balanced budget are:

1. FIXED MONTHLY EXPENSES

These expenses remain the same every month or year due to Singapore’s laws and Company service-provider terms (e.g. Hand Phone Plan, or HDB Rent).

2. VARIABLE MONTHLY EXPENSES

These expenses include food, entertainment, clothing, petroleum, and other expenses that may change every month or year. The challenge now is for you to choose on which variable expenses you can reduce.

3. OCCASIONAL EXPENSES

Occasional expenses happen a few times a year. This includes holiday vacations and seasonal gifts.

4. INCOME AFTER TAXES

Your monthly income after taxes is the amount of money that you have to work with within the month. This amount varies depending on a person’s career. Use your annual income to guide you while making your budget

5. SAVINGS

Savings is a portion of your budget that you keep for future use. It includes emergency fund and retirement fund as it helps you to reach your financial goals.

NEXT STEP

To attain a balanced budget, you must first know about the basics of keeping one. May this short video help you with that:

Sources: 1,2 & 3

Creating A Budget Is Like Learning How To Ride A Bike

Creating a budget for the first time is like learning how to ride a bicycle. At first you were scared to mount up those two-wheelers like how scared you were to conquer those mountain of debts. Even though you know these are healthy for you and your finances, you just cannot hop around and go!

That fear of yours consumed you. You never learned how to ride a bike gracefully. You never learned how to implement a budget efficiently.

Don’t you think it is the right time to change? For a brighter future ahead, I think it is!

Let me carefully take you to step 1…

Step 1: LOOK FOR A SAFE PLACE TO PRACTICE

When you are riding a bike for the first few times, it is better to find a place that will cushion your potential falls. Find a grassy field with short grasses so that it does not drag the wheels too much.

Likewise, you must find safe place to practice budgeting. That safe place is inside your head! Visualize your financial goals and examine how you are going to achieve them. Make it feasible and smart so you would not have too much unrealistic expectation. Then, list down your short-term and long-term financial goals.

Step 2: ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE ALL THE NECESSARY RESOURCES

After finding a “safe” place, the next things you have to gather are all the needed materials and information. For beginners in biking, consider strapping a helmet and kneepads. Tuck in your shoelaces while you are it. And avoid long pants, long skirts, and heavy clothing because the fabric can get caught in the gears or tires.

For beginners in budgeting, consider tracking your spending history (for the last two month). Gather all the past receipts, credit card statement, utilities bill, and bank statements. Estimate how much you make and spend each month.

Step 3: PRACTICE AND JUST DO IT

In order for you to practice riding or budgeting, you must push yourself to just do it. Mount the bike and get the feel of how it leans and steers. Notice how your body leans when you are going intro a curve. Instead of just using your hands to brave the curve, try letting your body turn and the bike will follow.

This will help you learn an important biking skill – balancing.

Now that you know your income and expenses per month, it is time to make a plan. Categorize your spending into 2-3 main categories namely: needs, savings, and wants. Learnvest suggests allocating 50% of your budget to your basic needs such as rent, food, transportation, and utilities. Secondly, 20% of your budget will go to your savings such as emergency fund. The last 30% of your budget will go to your wants such as mobile phone plans, gym memberships, and vacations.

This will help you learn an important budgeting skill – organizing.

Step 4: GET READY TO RIDE AND SAVE

From finding your safe place to pushing yourself to do it, the final step to take is to face your fears.

Ride that shiny bicycle! Follow that well-devised budgeting plan!

Raise the seat of your bike but keep it low enough so that you can touch the ground with your toes. Balance and steer along the flat surface. Glide along the gentle slopes. Allow yourself to go naturally with the flow of the road.

On the other hand, you must follow your budgeting plan that you devised on spreadsheet file or budgeting software. Track your spending and eliminate at least two unnecessary expenses every month. By doing so, you are keeping things under control.

Image Credits: pixabay.com (License: CC0 Public Domain)

Over the course of the month, you will encounter slopes and obstacles but you have to persevere on. It will all be worth it in the end!

Sources: 1, 2, & 3

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