Global Urban Symposium

Budgeting is synonymous to planning. This means that the budget is made up of different steps that have to be followed. If not, the plan will not work for you. Following a budget requires patience, conscientiousness, and consistency. Once you decide to stick to it, you will definitely reap the financial benefits and even have peace of mind because you know that you are managing your money well.

There are three simple steps to establishing a budget. The first step is to track your income and your expenses. This is the foremost information that you will base your plan on. Collect all your bank statements, credit card statements, receipts, and all your cash. The reason behind this is that you need to know how much money you are making and where it’s being spent. To make this easier, carry around a small notepad where you can list down the expenses as you make them.

Secondly, you have to group your income and expenses into categories. There are downloadable spreadsheets in the internet to help you with this. To give you an idea, the categories could be: groceries, personal supplies, clothing, entertainment, utilities, etc. Beside these, list your expenses per category in a given month. You can then compute for your average monthly income and your average monthly expense.

The third step is to make a budget which is within your income. Because of what you did in step 2, you can actually see if your expenses can be carried by your income. If it is not, then it means you have to cut some corners and make it fit.

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