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  4. What Is Needed To Make A Budget

Making a personal budget is easy, but some effort is still required. It is important to understand ahead of time what you need so that you don’t get discouraged once you have begun the process. The following points outline what is needed to make a personal budget.

Proper attitude — It is important to understand that budgeting is for everyone. If you are under the impression that only snobby, self serving, or greedy people spend a lot of time worrying about money, then you are mistaken. It is irresponsible to not take care of your finances. You owe it to your children, your family, and you deserve the rewards that financial planning will bring you. The negative attitudes I just described may be attributed to people whose sole purpose in life is to get money at any cost. For the rest of us, financial management is necessary for survival.

Tools — There are a few tools that will make budgeting easier. These include folders and envelopes to store receipts. A place to put your folders (a bankers box will do). A calculator can come in handy. A computer is helpful, but if you don’t have access to one, then a pencil and paper will do. If you have regular access to a computer, you can use the free spreadsheet offered on the Budget Tools page.

Motivation — Hopefully the information on this website has provided enough reasons to motivate you to make a personal budget.  If not, just imaging how good it will feel to be in control of your finances.

Discipline — To get the full benefits of budgeting requires discipline. Initially, you should look at your finances on a daily basis. Record any money you spent during the day. Check your bank account to see if any money came out. Look at the expense categories to see if any bills are due. This shouldn’t take a long time (about 5-10 minutes), but until tracking your expenses becomes a habit, you should force yourself to do this every day. They say if you do something every day for a month, it becomes a habit. The goal is to make sure that every dollar that passes through your hands is recorded and accounted for.

Ideally, all people in the house who deal with money will participate, but this isn’t necessary. You can still make a personal budget to track your own money — even if you have irregular expenses.

Time and patience — You will need to do some work to keep track of where your money is going, but this should not take a long time — a few minutes every day or two should be enough.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. As with anything, the more you do it, the easier it gets!


Related Pages

Why Budget
What Is Needed To Make A Budget
How To Budget
Calculate Income
Defining Expenses
Tracking Spending
Personal Budget Example
Personal Budget Tools
Budget Allocation Tool